Happy Birthday to Mom!

I had a great 29th birthday last week! When I was pregnant last summer with Cooper, people kept saying, "Oh, maybe she'll come on your birthday!" And I would say, "No, I think I want to keep that day for myself!" :) She did decide to wait a week, and we are very excited about celebrating her on Wednesday and this weekend.

Randy and the girls spoiled me for my birthday! Last weekend, we went to Pearland for a family date at Lupe Tortilla, Barnes and Noble, the party store, and Starbucks. On Saturday before my birthday on Wednesday I came home from taking my principal's exam in Beaumont to this:

a present for each day of the week leading up to my birthday! Randy had not only kept both girls by himself Friday night and Saturday, but he also took them shopping and planned out a fun birthday week for me! I got to open a present on Saturday and then every day leading up to Wednesday. They were all little, thoughtful gifts, and my favorite was the last one: a book called "29 Reasons We Love You For Your 29th Birthday!" Randy sat down with Kendall and asked her why she loved me, why Cooper loved me, and put reasons in there from him, too! It is so precious. Some of my favorites are:

4. You love that I am Cinderella - Kendall

7. You pack my food for dinner - Kendall

10. Cooper loves her momma best in the world - Cooper (from Kendall)

11. You put us first - Daddy

13. You hold babies - Kendall

15. You make me feel special - Cooper (from Daddy)

19. You make cookies and pudding with me - Kendall

23. We go to Wal-Mart - Kendall

25. You feed me a lot - Cooper (from Daddy)

26. You teach us about Jesus - Daddy

I love my book so much!! And I'm so thankful for how Randy made me feel special on my birthday.

Kendall and Cooper - someday when you are big and you are looking for a husband, you need to find someone that treats you just like your daddy treats me! He makes me feel so special and loved and he does so much to help take care of both of you! Don't settle for anything less!

On Wednesday Randy watched the girls while I went to have lunch with Jan, we ate dinner at home, and then he surprised me again by having arranged a sitter so we could go get coffee and dessert at a new coffee shop in town! Fun! The girls were dressed so cute that day, so I tried to take their pictures...but you know how that goes....

Oh the faces...

Then, on Thursday night after my birthday, we had the Johnsons, Erskines, Sanders, and Mitterlings over for dinner, cake, and ice cream. We cooked roast (my favorite) and Randy and Kendall made a wonderful strawberry cake with strawberry icing. Randy decorated it with real strawberries on top and it was so pretty, but I never got a picture!

After dinner the kids were a little wound up, and I got some pictures of them playing Ring Around The Rosie. :)

I had a great long week of birthday celebrations! It for sure did not get lost in the shuffle of Cooper's birthday!! We have been working hard getting ready for that though and I can't wait to post pictures of her party this weekend!

Walking Videos!

Cooper rarely crawls these days - she is walking so much!! She's so cute...she leads with her belly and falls a lot, but we love watching her get up and down. Here are some videos!

Beach Days!

We went to the beach one day last week all by ourselves! I usually meet the girls and their kids out there with Kendall and Cooper during the week, but everyone's plans fell through on Thursday, so it ended up just being me and Kendall and Cooper. I had already told Kendall we were going and she was so excited, so I didn't want to back out. I was a little nervous though about going with both girls and all our stuff but it went really well! The girls had so much fun playing by themselves and together and were fine with not having friends there. :)

Cooper was so much easier now that she can walk! Before this trip, every time we would go she would pretty much just sit in my lap and eat or crawl all over me the whole time, but today she sat in her chair to eat and then played on the sand and crawled around and walked in the waves! She is just getting so big!

These pictures were actually not taken on Thursday when I was by myself (except for the first one). Sunday night we had beach baptism and took the girls to play for awhile. I brought my camera then when Randy was with me, but I for sure wasn't bringing it when I was by myself! I just love these pictures of them playing independently though!!

She has a lot of work to do in the sand and she does it very well. :)

We love going to the beach!

Here's Hoping

Hoping

for
rain!

And enjoying playing inside with this cute baby in the meantime!

Preschool Carnival!

Saturday morning our children's ministry team put on a Preschool Extravaganza at the church! The whole morning was geared towards preschoolers and their families and was so much fun. Kendall was very excited about it, but was a little overwhelmed at first when we got there. Cooper rode in her stroller and seemed to love it!

There was a special area just for babies Cooper's age with ball pits and tunnels to crawl through. When we were leaving, Mrs. Erin said that Cooper was their inspiration for that because "we had to have something for Cooper to do too!!" So sweet! Love our children's ministry staff!
She is very into handing stuff back and forth lately. Here she was trying to hand me the ball as I took her picture. :)

Kendall played lots of fun carnival games, like this fishing game, and won fun prizes!

Cooper carried her ball around even after we left the ball pit.

Cooper and Katie Jade in their matching strollers!

The event was a success! Lots of families came and everyone had a blast!

When Tyne was holding Cooper, she got ahold of a sucker Randy was holding. She loved it!

Tyne is Noelle's sister and she has been one of our student ministry interns this summer! We are going to miss her when she leaves this week, but she's an Aggie too, so we'll be seeing her soon at the games! She says Cooper is her favorite baby because she's always happy. :)

Loving the sucker. I had to keep it up when Tyne passed her back to me! Ha!

Back to the balls! Such a happy girl!

We had such a fun morning! So thankful for our church and how they take care of my whole family.

Our little reader

Another post without pictures....stink.
Cooper is loving her books these days! It has just started really over the past 5 or 6 days, but she brings us books all the time and when we go to bed she leans over to her bookshelf when we're rocking in the rocking chair and reaches for her books. The other night when I put her in bed, I put one of her "First Words" books in bed with her and she was playing with it when I walked. The next morning I heard her awake and talking and waited a few minutes before I went in there. When I went in her room, she was sitting up in her crib, turning the pages of her book. I went to pick her up, and she leaned back into her bed to get her book! Love that!!

She's Walking!

Cooper started taking steps on her own about a week ago...August 7th to be exact. :) I have been waiting to post until I had pictures or video, but I keep forgetting to take some! And, it's not easy to catch her. She still prefers crawling most of the time, but she is standing up one her own a ton and taking 4-5 steps at a time. When I get the camera out and try to get a good distance away from her, she gives up walking and plops down to crawl over to me real quick. She's so cute. And her big sister is so proud of her. I think she's been standing on her own for at least a month now, but still, when Kendall sees her doing that or walking she yells, "Mom!!! Cooper's standing!!!" Like it's the first time. Love it!
I will keep working on pictures and videos, but I just wanted to have this documented!