Nate's Family's Visit

Nate's mom and sister and her family came to Salem to meet Cooper last week.  Here are a few pictures of the cousins...

Judson - 24 months, Cooper - 6 weeks, Alyssa - 7.5 years, Corbin - 28 months

The little boys with Uncle Phil

Pumpkin Patch #2

We met up with the Olsons last Wednesday to go to a little pumpkin patch to actually get pumpkins.  :) (Since Judson was sick at the first pumpkin patch and the pumpkins were REALLY far away from where we had to pay for them, we didn't end up buying any.)   Madi and Judson enjoyed the hayride and running around in the pumpkins and the two "littles" slept the entire time in their Becos (really awesome baby carriers...both JuliAnn and I use ours daily).

We're so thankful for friends who like to go on adventures with us!

I have about four of these pictures...Judson is looking at me in one, Madi's looking in the next, then Judson... I never got one of both of them looking.  Go figure!  :)

Sneak Peak

We had newborn/family pictures taken when Cooper was eleven days old.  I will have a bunch to share in a week or so, but wanted to give you a sneak peak of a couple that were e-mailed to me today and are not ones I'm using in our birth announcements. 

 

Bauman's Farm

Nate took a morning off work last week so we could go to a pumpkin patch.  We went to a pretty amazing one!  Unfortunately, Judson ended up being sick, so he didn't enjoy it nearly as much as he would have otherwise.  (He seemed fine in the morning and ate well.  He cried for seemingly no reason at one point and freaked out when a rooster crowed, which seemed a little odd.  The tell-tale sign that something was wrong came when he didn't want any of the apple cider donut we offered him.  This boy NEVER turns down food, let alone a treat!  He ended up having a fever but never threw up, which I thought he was going to do a few times.)

We did have fun, though, and we will definitely return next year.  Actually, upon looking at these pictures, I decided maybe it was a good thing he wasn't feeling his best.  We would've had a really hard time dragging him away from all of the tractors!  :)

Macy and Cooper

I only have one picture from this past weekend.  Morgan, Anna, and Macy came up to help my mom celebrate her birthday (the fifteenth).  Anna's is the sixteenth, so we sort of celebrated that too.  My finger got in the way of the flash, but Macy wasn't about to let me take another one.  :)  I'm sort of afraid Cooper's going to pass petite little Macy up in size before too long.

I love all the hands ready to protect Cooper  :)

Cooper's second trip to the zoo

The kiddos and I met my parents at the zoo a week and a half ago.  Cooper was exactly four weeks old.  We had a terrific time and only got sprinkled on once.  I'll let the pictures (and a few captions) speak for themselves...

Judson and I have never gone in the lorikeet habitat before.  I needed someone brave to let the birds land on.  :)

I've wanted to get this picture for a long time, but there are usually lots of other little people crowding around.  Not this time!  (It's a sea lion.)

Exhausted after a long, fun day...

I have a number of other posts to catch up and I hope to do that soon.  Stay tuned!

Five Weeks Old

I cannot believe our girl is already five weeks old!  Time is going by way too fast!  I'm doing my best to enjoy every second and not dwell on the state of my house.  At least for once I have a valid excuse for it to be such a mess.  :)  (Though, at the moment it looks better than it has in weeks, because I worked really hard - and fast!- while both kiddos napped today.)

Here's a little bit about our month-old babe:

• She still sleeps almost all the time.
• She nurses like a champ, and she's really chunking up!  According to our scale, she weighs somewhere around ten and a half pounds.  She's not on any kind of eating schedule.  She will go hours upon hours without eating and then nurse frequently all evening.  
• She is quite the spitter-upper.  Good thing I'm used to it.  :)
• She's starting to have one longer (relatively...) period of sleep when we first go to bed.  The other night it was six hours, but mostly it's three to four.  Generally we go to bed sometime after 11:00, get up once in the night, and then once in the early morning (before I really want to be up for the day...).
• She's really alert and cuddly.  We hope it lasts.
• She smiled intentionally for the first time last night.  THE. BEST.

I think that's about it.  We are so in love with this sweet baby, and we're thankful God has entrusted her to us.

Smiling in her sleep

Performing what Nate refers to as the "Super Coop."  Look at that strong neck!

Playing "Follow the Leader."  :)