Cooper is 5!!!

I can't believe my baby is 5 years old!  I'll just say it once tonight, time needs to stop!!!

 

After Cooper went to bed last night we put up a few decorations for him this morning.  His request this year was a Star Wars party.

 

 Doesn't he just look pitiful, it's your birthday Coop, smile a little.  He didn't say he felt bad but he only ate one of those muffins.  Wasn't exactly what I had planned when I pulled out the breakfast surprise.

 He had school this morning so he got to celebrate on his actual birthday.  We took on treat bags for everyone along with fruit snacks and popcorn for their snack.  The birthday child also gets to get something out of the birthday box.  He got some kind of old McDonald happy meal toy.  I'm sure he will carry that thing around all week, he is always so proud of the smallest things.

 

The yummy cake. We have plenty of leftovers if anyone wants some.

 We decided this year we would give Cooper a party at Chuck E Cheese.  This is really his first real party with friends.  I heard from Alicia that this little guy was pumped up all week.  Jake is so funny.  I went to give him some tokens, we grabbed a couple and ran off leaving me with the cup.  The whole cup was his, not just two.

 Nora is just as cute as a button.

Cooper's friend Conner from church just happened to be there with his grandma so they played a few games before Conner had to leave. 

 Once Allie & Wyatt arrived he was all about his Allie.  Who could blame him, she is pretty!

 Levi and Mags were also in attendance.  Speaking of Levi, I hope he slept well tonight.  He asked for a second piece of cake, I needed to get rid of some so Tracey should be happy he didn't ask for 3 or 4. 

 Funny story about my mom.  We didn't reserve a party, I just made sure we had plenty of pizza and drinks plus tokens for the kids.  I had about 28-30 for each kid there.   Some of the younger ones shared with their sibling so we had about 3 cups of tokens left on the table.  My mom comes up to me with about 400+ tickets.  She said it took all the tokens but she won all these tickets.  When she said all the tokens, she meant all the tokens left on the table, like for the kids at the party.  She wasn't even playing a game with my nephew who came with her.  She really used about 80-90 tokens by herself. 

 We all gave an American Idol worthy version of Happy Birthday before we dug into the cake.  Have I mentioned how yummy it was?  Forget the design, if you want a good cake go to Jay C.

 Next up were presents!!!  Jake got Cooper some more play-doh.  Which is awesome, ours was getting old and hard.  I love the feel of  new play-doh.  It's so fun to act like a kid again.

 Levi & Maggie got him a Spider-Man that shots things.

 Allie & Wyatt got a new game and twistable crayons.  He will love both.  I love birthdays and Christmas cause it gives more things to play with.  I think I enjoy it as much as Cooper does.

 Since we didn't reserve a party he couldn't do the free ticket blaster, we had to pay a $1 for it, but he is the birthday boy.  However, it's not the birthday one so it didn't have the 1000 ticket inside.  He looked so scared before they turned it on.  He figured out if you didn't move around much, the tickets will land on you all on their own.

 

We all know Chuck E Cheese can be a little chaotic at time, but when you don't have to clean up, it's so worth it!  Plus it wasn't crowded at all.  I want to thank everyone who came out to help us celebrate.  My little boy sure felt special tonight.

"Pretend" Birthday Party

We had such a fun day here, despite some sick kids.  We've actually had a really good weekend and I only got out of my pj's for a shower and company that came over tonight after dinner.

 

Cameron started with some yucky and messy diapers on Friday & Saturday.  He seemed fine after dinner last night then Cooper started complaining of a belly ache.  We went to get Cameron this morning and was almost knocked over by the stench of vomit.  Luckily he never got sick again, just a few more messy diapers, and Cooper was fine all day.  I kept them both home from church and enjoyed some morning cuddles.  Cameron craweled into my lap before lunch and fell asleep.  Can't complain about that.  Thanks to his early, long nap we got a lot more accomplished today.

 

Since we can't use stocking holders after the great stocking holder debacule of 2010, I went ghetto and used some duct tape.  You can't really see it and it looks pretty.   We also got the outside completed.  I took a picture but it didn't come out good, actually it was terrible.  I'm gonna figure out a different setting and get a better one before I put it on here.

 

 Cooper got to have a mini-birthday party tonight. Or as he called it his pretend birthday party.  We are having a small party tomorrow with a few friends at Chuck E Cheese, since Aunt Marilyn, Tina, Ricky, and Randy don't have small children, we had cake & ice cream tonight so they could come over and give him their gifts.   My mom, Steve's parents, and Scott also brought their gifts.  We went ahead and gave him ours too.  It totally wasn't supposed to be a party but it somehow turned into one.  In the end I'm sure it's easier than trying to get all the gifts home from Chuck E Cheese.

 

Scott made the cake, somehow it slipped in the car.  It may have looked messy, but it was yummy!

 It was gifts or cake and ice cream first, he chose gifts.  Who can blame him?

My battery was running low so we didn't get too many pics.  He got some craft stuff, Star Wars stuff, Batman, books, a game, all the things a fun loving 5 year old will love.  Oh, and an electonic bowling game from our cousin Ricky.  I had just seen it an ad and thought he would like it.

 I was the mean mommy who got trick candles for him.  I went ahead and posted all the pics of us singing, mainly to show the placement of his hand.  Didn't even realize this until I uploaded them.

 He loved his Bat Cave and action figures from Scott.   As well as the Pop the Pig game from my mom.  He was at her house one day and a commercial came on for it so my mom found one for him. 

I cannot believe he will be 5 tomorrow!  5 just seems so old. How did time go by so fast?  Even though the kids didn't feel great this weekend, I am so thankful it allowed us to slow down a bit and just enjoy one another.  We needed this weekend.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

I know I may have committed the ultimate sin of putting my tree up before Thanksgiving but let me give you my reasoning.  I want to relax and enjoy what Thanksgiving is all about.  Now that we have kids we do some Black Friday shopping, we got to Light up Charlestown, and Steve usually goes to either Bloomington or has to work that weekend as well.  See, I just don't want to worry about it that weekend and waiting until December, well that is just blasphemy.

 

We had a free day today so it worked out perfectly to get to work.  The kids were in a great mood this morning and let me get some work done.  Steve  had a meeting until noon today at church, I did all our prep work while he was gone.  First up was moving some furniture.   Last year we put the tree up in front of our windows.  In a perfect world those windows would face the front of the house and the blinds would be open for the world to see our tree in all it's glory.  In our world, those windows face the backyard which happens to be a construction zone, so we changed things up a bit, and I think I like it.

 

 

The boys needed a break, you know after all their hard work of bringing up the decorations from the basement.

 

Once Steve got home it was time to get down to business.  Cooper was all about it this year.  We moved the tree to in front of our banister that leads to the basement, we also added some garland and lights as well.  I like it here, gives us more room to put things under the tree.   We added garland and lights to our windows as well.  We have a few more spots inside we want to decorate but we need more garland.  I also think we have everything needed for the outside of our house.  I picked some things up last years the day after Christmas.  We hope to get it done this week.  We've never decorated the outside before, I can't wait!!!

 So here we are, this is the view from our front door entryway.

 Another view from the window.  I'm hoping to pick up a tree topper that lights up, I just can't seem to find one I like.

IU Football

A few weeks ago my in-laws asked if I wanted to go to a football with the big boys, not only would they watch our little boys but they would also buy my ticket.  This is a no brainer.   In the 7 years since I've been up to IU football game, Scott has perfected the art of tailgating.  They didn't do this my last trip up there.  I had visions of kicking my feet up and hanging by the tent all day.  When I found out the game was going to be at noon we had to get creative.  The first act of creativity was to leave the house around 6:30.  We made it up to Bloomington shortly after 8 and in no time at all we were set up ready to go.  Scott has the packing and setting up and taking down to a science.

 

 Although it warmed up to near 70 today but this morning was freezing.  Lucky for me I bought a super cute ear warming headband up at the outlets last week.  It's cute on, hair not so cute once you take it off.

 Instead of the usual hot dogs and hamburgers, our next act of creativity was pancakes, eggs, and sausage.  Scott is the man!!!  He cooked us all up a delicious breakfast.

 We had about 3 hours to spare from the time we arrived until it was time to make our way into the game, those three hours flew by.  In between pancakes rounds we walked up to the stadium to watch "The Walk".  The football players and coaches all walk from buses (they all stay together in a hotel before game day) to the stadium while the band plays.  There isn't a whole lot of people around when they do this, it's really just a tradition Scott & Steve like to watch when they go up there.

 It also gave us some time to get a picture of us, like this one with Steve's drunk face.

 Or this one with Steve's mid sentence face.

 

Or this one with our not impressed face.  This look will come in handy much later in the day.

 

A few years ago Scott bought some bricks through a fund raiser of some sort, I think this was the first time I got to see them in person.

 We found a pretty tree, that's all.

 I'm not sure how long they have had their season tickets, it's been at least since Steve was in high school, maybe longer.  After almost 20 years you eventually get good seats.  This was our view, without a zoom.  Not too shabby.

When they players run out on the field, they all touch Hep's Rock, named after late coach Terry Hoeppner.  He passed away during the 2007 season.  They went on to beat Purdue in the final seconds to become bowl eligible that season. 

 I have visions of this being Cooper one day. 

 There is a reason I'm not talking about the game yet, more on that in a minute.  Probably the highlight was some members of the armed forces doing Gangham Style with some IU dancers.

 

Remember out not impressed faces?  IU got hammered! It ended up being 62-14 or something like that.  We left at the beginning of the 4th quarter and they rarely leave early.  It was just bad.  IU hasn't been to a bowl game since 2007 and that was the first in a long time.  If they win their next two games there is still a chance they may go again this year.   Ohio State and Penn State are not eligible for post-season play this year.  Ohio State probably cheated and I'm sure I don't need to go into details about Penn State.  So even though Indiana isn't all that great, had they won today there is chance they could have played for the Big 10 championship.  The winner of the Big 10 gets to go to the Rose Bowl.  In Pasadena.  You know, like the Rose Parade on New Years Day.  For IU this was a once in our lifetime opportunity.  There were lots of ifs going into this and today was the first one.  It didn't pan out and in a big way. 

 

Despite the loss it was a great day for me.  Steve & I both get days to ourselves separately, but never with each other.  We talked tonight and I think this may have been our first since before Cameron was born.  Much, much needed day together.  It wouldn't have been possible without my in-laws so a huge thank you to them and for Scott and his friend Jere for putting up with me all day.  Love you guys!!!

Flashback Friday

In just 10 days Cooper will be 5 years old!  5!!!  That seems crazy to me.  Oh how I would love for just 5 minutes to go back and hold this sweet little baby again.   

 

Shop till you drop

This past Saturday Sharon & I spent the day shopping at the outlets.  This was pure bliss.  We shopped for 5 1/2 hours non stop.  We even skipped lunch, of course we did stop for a chocolate break.

 

I had visions of myself taking tons of pictures but I think I was just having too much fun.  Sharon was in search for something for family pictures and I was just along for the ride.  Of course I didn't come out empty handed.   I found a few deals for myself.  I'm going back up after the holidays so I tried to refrain myself. 

 

The only downside for the day was the rain we had all.day.long.  I didn't complain however when I saw this.