She's on her way...

Cooper is growing bigger bigger bigger! She is 16 weeks old today and will turn four months while we are in Ft. Worth for Christmas. I love all her rolls and dimples. January 4th we go to the doctor for her four month check-up and I can't wait to see how much she has grown.
Check out that belly and those thighs!

She is such a good girl! I'm thinking it may be time to drop a feeding and get down to only four feedings a day - I'm having to wake her up a lot. I think Kendall was 17 weeks when we dropped the fifth feeding, so we are close to that. Now she eats last at 9:30, sleeps all night, and I have to wake her up to eat at 7:30 in the morning, so I'm thinking we could drop a feeding, feed her last at 7:00 or 7:30 and then still start our day at 7:00 or 7:30. Maybe after we get back from our Christmas trip! We are thankful for another great sleeper and eater!!

Christmas at the Dane's

Randy put lights on the house for the first time this year! Mom and David had some extra lights that they gave us and we think they look great! Every time we pull up to the house, Kendall says, 'Ooooo there's our house! It's so booo-tiful!"

Kendall got a new tree this year! Our friend Erin Martin told us that her daughter Aubrey was finished with her pink Barbie tree and asked if Kendall would want it because she knew she loves pink. It is so cute in her room! Also, I found the pillowcase that my freshman year college roommate's mom made for me for Christmas that year and put it on her bed.
We are running out of room for all our nativities! This year we put the Jim Shore nativity in Kendall's room because we think it matches well and because Mom and David got it for us in Fredricksburg the weekend we found out we were pregnant with Kendall. We also set up some of her Christmas books with the Precious Moments nativity.

Cooper has a tree in her room, too! Kendall decorated this one for her, if you can't tell. :)

Our church partners with four countries that we do missions with: Bolivia, Cambodia, Kenya, and Mexico. We have at least one nativity from each and we set them up in our kitchen window - perfect for the missions pastor's house! :)

I love our Christmas tree!!!

My favorite part: the stockings! We just love having four stockings hanging on the fireplace this year. I am pretty proud of them!

Merry Christmas!

First laugh!

This sweet girl was laughing up a storm last night! She is so precious and we would do anything to hear that laugh!

Christmas Baby!

Isn't this the cutest Christmas package you've ever seen?!

I love ruffles!

Found her hands!

Cooper has found her hands and holds them all the time now. She is just the cutest little baby! We are having so much fun with her during her first Christmas.

3 Months Old!

Cooper was three months old last week! We were in Ft. Worth so I had to wait until we got home to take pictures in the chair.

You are getting so big! We don't go back to see Dr. B until next month, but we weighed you on our scale at home and it had you right around 14 pounds! You are still eating and sleeping so well. During the day you eat at 7:30, 11:00. 2:30, 6:00 and 9:30, which is every three and a half hours. Then you go to bed at 10 and I usually have to wake you up at 7:30!
You are such a happy and easy-going little girl. We love to talk to you and make you smile and coo. Your voice is so sweet! We love your big bright eyes and can just see you taking in everything around you. You hardly ever cry, so when you do we know something is really wrong!

Your mommy and daddy and big sister love you so much Cooper! You bring us so much joy and we are very thankful for you.

First Trip to Ft. Worth

Our Thanksgiving trip was Cooper's first time to travel to Ft. Worth. She did so great in the car - slept most of the time. It did take us a little longer this time because of having to stop and feed her once on the road, but we just took our time and had a good trip up. When we got in town, we went to Pops and Kiki's house for the first two nights. Cooper got to meet her Aunt Megg for the first time!

We had a lot of fun at their house, and Cooper spent a lot of time being held by her Pops. Thursday was Thanksgiving, and then after spending time at the house Friday morning, we loaded up and went to stay at Randy's parents' house for the next three nights. The weather was so pretty, so Saturday we took all the girls - Kendall, Cooper, Gracie, and Evy - to the park. Cooper slept in the wrap,

and Evy hung out in the stroller.

The big girls had fun talking to the ducks.

Cooper had a lot of fun with her Gigi and Peeps. Monday morning we loaded up again and headed out to Haslet to spend a few days with Granny and Papas. Granny got home the Friday before from her knee surgery, so she was ready to spend some time cuddling with Cooper and listening to all Kendall's stories. Cooper did spend a little time with Papas, too.

Here she is trying to crawl up Granny! She's getting so strong! In fact, while I'm writing this, she is propped up next to me trying to scrunch up her tummy and sit up! She's so busy!

Good medicine for Granny!

We had a great time taking Cooper to Ft. Worth for the first time. She doesn't have to wait too long for her next trip - we'll be back for Christmas!

Cooper's First Thanksgiving

Cooper had a busy first Thanksgiving! It was great to get to see a lot of our family and to introduce them to Cooper for the first time.

We started our day at Mamaw and Papaw's house. Gracie and Evy were there and Kendall enjoyed playing with them. Here Kendall and Gracie are eating their lunch. While Cooper sat and watched...or napped. She got to meet her Mamaw and Papaw for the first time, as well as a lot of cousins and aunts and uncles.

After lunch, we left and went to Randy's Grandma Dane's Thanksgiving at his Aunt Brenda's house. Cooper got to meet Randy's aunt Brenda and uncle Wayne, Mark and Lydia, cousin Amy, and his cousins Emily and Kyle as well as their girls Maelie and Lorelai. Look...I got Brenda in a picture!! :)

After we left Brenda's, we got to go visit Granny in the hospital! Mom had her left knee replaced in July and she had her right one done the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. We were so excited to get to go see her and spend some time with her and David. Kendall loved sitting up in the bed with her and asking her what everything was. And Cooper liked just sitting.

Aunt Auggie and Uncle Scott were there too and Cooper took a nap in Auggie's lap.

For dinner, we went to my Granny and Oscar's house. Cooper got to meet her Great Granny for the first time!

Great Granny had a present for Kendall: a book about cats! She knew Kendall loves cats because that's what she was for Halloween, and the book was a big hit.

We had a great dinner and then ended the night back at Pops' and Kiki's house for the big game - A&M vs. t.u. Alden and Scott stayed and watched it with us. Ags win!

It was so much fun to see everyone in one day and to let them meet our sweet Cooper.

Parade of Lights

The parade was so much fun this year! We missed having Randy there with us - he got a last minute ticket to the very exciting A&M v. Nebraska game - but we had fun and I did great with both girls! We got there early because we wanted to make sure we had a place to park and a place to sit and watch the parade, and at the last minute I thought to bring Randy's ITouch. Kendall has several games on there that she loves to play, so I thought that might keep her entertained while we were waiting. We hung out next to the Beams, and when Lawson saw Kendall playing on the touch, he grabbed his mom's phone. I love this picture!!

They were comparing games - they both have "the monkey game" - and at one point they even switched so they could play some games that they thought looked like fun on the other one's phone!
Sweet friends! Lawson is exactly one year (minus three days) older than Kendall, but she's just so big that I think they look the same age! I did not have high hopes for how Kendall would do with the parade. It goes right in front of us and I knew it would be loud. She did awesome, though! A few times she covered her ears, but she never got upset and she really loved it. Here she is waving at the floats - she loved waving and saying "Merry Christmas!" It was so much fun to watch her.

When we were leaving, she said, "Mom, that parade was fun!" I asked her which one was her favorite, and she said, "The truck." I said, "Which truck? There were a lot!" And she said, "The one with the Grinch!" We watched How The Grinch Stole Christmas on Friday night while we put up our Christmas tree, and since then we've watched it probably half a dozen times - she loves it! She says, "Mom, he don't like him's heart." (Talking about how the Grinch's heart is two sizes too small). So of course that float was her favorite!

The Chick-a-lay float!! That was one of our favorites, too, because we go there quite a lot!

It was such a great parade! It lasted about an hour and there were so many entries! Here's a shot of the Corvette club for Pops!!

Here we are after the parade, ready to head back to the car. And yes, Kendall IS chewing on one of those light sticks that has liquid in it. I promise I was watching her the whole time, Randy - except for when I was looking at the camera!! Cooper stayed in the wrap on me the whole time and never woke up, even when the fire truck was honking it's horn! Maybe next year she will actually SEE some of the parade!!

It feels a lot like Christmas here, but we are getting packed and ready for a week in Ft. Worth for Thanksgiving! We're excited about a long vacation!