Our civic duty fulfilled- Henry.

Mama thinks it's important that we understand how important it is to vote. So this morning, we decided to take advantage of early voting and headed down to the community center to cast our ballot. Little did we know, everyone else thought it was a good day to vote and the line was over 2 hours long. Regardless, mama said we were staying, because she doubted that the line would get any shorter before election day. We waited in line and three good things happened to us:
1. People felt bad for us and let us cut in front of them, shortening our wait to only 1 hour and 45 minutes.
2. Mama bought us animal crackers from a vending machine to keep us occupied. (Mind you, she didn't ealize the wait was so long, so we literally went into this fiasco with just a stroller and a nuk for June.)
3. Mcdonalds for lunch! mama says it was a reqard for our good behavior, but we really know it was a reward to herself for managing two kids in line for two hours.

And after it was over, we even got stickers.

Now that our civic duty is over, mama said we aren't going to watch any more campaign adds and asks that Barack Obama and Kay Hagan please stop send flyers to our house. We couldn't fit them all in the recycling bin this week.

Don't forget to vote!

Tonight-Henry.

Juner continues to have problems sleeping. We think it's a combination of two things. First, every time she wakes up, mama and papa always find her sitting up. Tonight she was up on her knees at the edge of the crib. Mama read that when babies reach developmental milestones, like crawling, or pulling themselves up to a sitting position, they often like doing it so much that it interferes with their sleep. Next, mama was desperate enough to start doping Juner with Baby Tylenol and Oragel. Turns out, her hunch may be right. While slathering Oragel on Juner's gums, she thought she detected a new tooth. But she didn't want to turn on a light to see, as she just wanted June to go to sleep already.

Here's a new skill in action. She really wants in that bathtub.

We like how June keeps her thin waist despite huge legs and big belly. Maybe we've been fastening her diapers too tight.

In addition to the mad amounts of candy I've been raking in, I've also amassed a respectable collection of fake tattoos. Mama didn't feel like fighting when I insisted on putting more on this afternoon. I have a pirate tattoo to commemorate the best Halloween ever. (Whenever I se a skeleton, I insist that it is really Henry with sunglasses on.) June also has a frog tattoo because she likes her costume so much. You can also see that I have a princess tattoo as well. Mama wants to sneak in and write "Mom" underneath it, but I won't let her.

Do you need tickets to the gun show?

And finally, my firetruck tattoo. With all these cool tattoos and my old school Bengals shirt, I am really looking good.

Another Halloween Party- Henry.

Today we got to go to school for a candy party!!!! I love candy!!!

Juner and I dressed up in our costumes and posed for a picture before we got into the serious candy collecting. They had a photo booth just like at prom. Though mama reassured us both that we won't have to take each other to prom. She thinks we'll be able to find dates or at least con our cousins into going with us.

JB mostly crawled around on the floor. We gave her a pretzel to keep her from eating hay.

To earn candy, I had to perform feats of skill and strength. Easy stuff for the Dread Pirate Henry.

June tried her hand at bowling.

Later, I conquered my fear and climbed the big inflatable slide. It was great!

I ended up riding down it three times!Finally, I got to decorate a cookie. Since mama was making me wait until the end to eat my candy, I inhaled this in one bite before she could stop me.

We had tons of fun- especially mama. She loves a good festival.

We didn't even wait until we got home to dig into our booty. Mama let me have some as soon as we got outside. I picked the mini M&Ms, which become quite messy when you're trying to shovel 50 in your mouth at a time.

Juner fell asleep on the way home. Not surprising for a little girl who decided she was up for good at 4am. Mama decided this must not be the baby she ordered and is on the phone trying to trade in for a better baby that actually sleeps.

But once we got home, Jurey turned on the charm.

Where's that little frog going?

Every pirate needs his trusty frog companion.

Here's my best pirate face.

I told June that she really had to be cute to ensure mama didn't get rid of her. this is what she came up with.

Pumpkin Project- Henry.

Every year the students at Wake Forest host the Pumpkin Project, where under privileged kids get to come in have a festival of their own and trick or treat in the dorms. Lucky for us, the faculty is also invited to bring their families. And mama even convinced me to wear my pirate costume! (It took many promises of candy to get it on.)

Juner and I got our picture taken with the Demon Deacon.
Then we went off to play games. Mama loved this game the most. You stomp on a balloon until it pops. Perfect for a two year old.

Next we dug for dinosaur bones like Curious George. But I am a pirate, so I didn't uncover any bones; I uncovered pirate booty- a gold coin. Then I got to trade my coin in for candy!

Finally, we headed over to the cotton candy machine. I had to eat fast so mama wouldn't take it all. She loves cotton candy!

Church Fall Festival- June.

This weekend, we hung around the house and got things cleaned up.

While mama and papa did their tidying, I copped an attitude with my "No autographs please" t-shirt (Thanks Miss Megan).

Then I switched it over to cute with the new t-shirt Aunt Jenni sent me. Henry even likes it because it has candy corn on it.

Later, we had our pick of church festivals to attend for supper. We chose the one where Henry goes to Preschool. It was a great festival with a petting zoo, bingo, bluegrass music and free will donation chili dogs and Cheerwine! We had a great time.

I went in to the festival looking pretty and petite, but came out looking stained and heavy thanks to the chili dogs.

Mama intended this to be a video of me dancing to the band, but I caught sight of her plate and decided I wanted it more.

Henry stayed away from the chili dogs and instead devoured two plates of baked beans. (Mind you, we ate supper before we got to the festival.)

After the baked beans, we headed into the gym where they had three huge inflatable play areas for kids. We tried to get Henry to go up the slide, which looked easiest, but he refused.

So instead we tried to get him to go through the inflatable maze. they asked if he was three, and we lied and said he was, then threw him in as fast as we could. He actually handled himself well.
Then he even made it up the stairs and down the slide.

GG artwork-June.

Our GG Grandpa is pretty handy with a computer and he put together these collages for us. We thought you might enjoy them.

"Sweety Britches"

"Little Boy"

"Huggy Babe"

Our hammock- Henry.

Now that it's the end of October, papa decided it was a good time to get the hammock out. Don't ask me why.

We had a good time trying to get the hammock to balance, but I wanted it to fall over, so I wasn't much help.

Today, mama was distributing too many kisses. I told her to stop kissing my face. When she asked where she could kiss, I decided the only safe place was "in my hair." Isn't 2 too young to tell your mom to stop kissing?

We even attracted a little frog in our hammock.

Mama says that I must be teaching Juner how to push her buttons. Mama says she can tolerate a lot from babies, but one thing that really gets her is when babies bite down on a spoon and refuse to let go. I told June it really irritates her when you smile with the spoon in your mouth. She did a pretty good job even with just two teeth.

June continues to make me look bad when it comes to eating. But it all evens out. I don't eat, and June finishes my lunch. (Call me Oliver.) We're very excited that she's transitioning away from baby food and on to table food. Last night, she dined on broccoli and sauteed apples and pears (in a molasses-soy sauce-vinegar sauce) and tonight she ate two bowls of curried pumpkin soup. (Mama had to brag- fancy nights like these rarely happen twice in a row. Back to hot dogs tomorrow night.)

But no matter what Juner and I do to bug mama, it doesn't matter, because she is now the proud owner of a-

-food dehydrator. Seriously, mama has been pining for one of these for a long time. She's even considered buying one. But she knew if she waited long enough, the right opportunity would come up. And it did- she got it on Craigslist for $5! This is going to be he best ever! Beef jerky! Fruit leather! Apple chips! Thisis really going to open doors for us into the chewy tough food world.

A girly girl.

When we were blessed with a daughter, we weren't going to push gender roles on her. (We said the same thing with Henry and look how that turned out.) We mostly said that because we only knew boys and girly things like dolls, dances, and Princesses are beyond our knowledge (no offense, Cowen girls). One thing that particularly frightened mama were tights. How frivolous, how ridiculous.

That is, until it got cooler and some of June's summer things were too cute to be put away. And then we became a tights family. Seriously, have you ever seen anything so cute?

And look at that bottom. Too much. Does anyone have any advice on tights that attract so much lint?

Now that June is crawling, we are quite enamored with her sweet little bottom. When she's not stuffed in tights, she's got her fat little legs squeezed into leggings. We thought this was especially cute with a little extra butt cheek hanging out, until papa went to adjust her diaper and got an extra surprise.

Henry's antics

We wanted to devote an entire post to Henry, because he's just been really fun lately (that is, when he's not pushing mama's buttons). He's started pretending and is good at repeating a lot of the phrases that we tend to overuse. Some of our favorites:
1. "You guys"
2. On the phone with papa: "So how's your work?"
3. "Mama's gonna rock you, babycakes." (Quoting Grandma Seibert's promise to June that mama would rock her to sleep from now on- fat chance.)

He also has new names for us- "Pop-popske" and "Momke."

Here's Henry in his favorite playroom of the house- our 4'X8' kitchen floor- we all really like each other here, and since mama spends most of her time in the kitchen, we all spend a lot of time in the kitchen. If you can't catch all that he's saying, Thomas (the train) is going to the grocery store to buy milk and pizza. Mac (the red semi) and Tanker (the black semi) are going to the marshmallow store for marshmallows (what else?), but the first marshmallow store is out of marshmallows, so they have to go to another store (based on actual events of Papa and Mister Paul). Meanwhile, Mac and Tanker have left their respective trailer and tanker back at the campsite with Lightning McQueen. Really, who needs dolls?

When not in search of marshmallows, Mac often goes out to buy lunch to take to Papa's work- usually milk and cheeseburgers.

You'll note that all of our favorite toys are trucks with trailers. They are the best.

After the kids ripped the room apart (we like to think it's not always this messy), Henry tried to do a puzzle, but his baby sister is really getting good at crawling. So Henry had to take matters into his own hands.

This is our favorite way that he tries to get rid of her.

We have pumpkins in our front yard. Today papa commented that they were beautiful. Henry replied "They're not beautiful, they have grass on them." Apparently, he does not approve of the lawn care.

Papa had his computer out and Henry was playing with it. Papa asked if Henry wanted to type some letters with him. Henry answered "Papa, you can type ABCs when I'm done doing my work."

And our favorite: We were reading a new book, "How Do Dinosaurs go to School?" which asks the age old question whether dinosaurs behave in class or act up. When a T-Rex was misbehaving in his class, mama asked Henry why the teacher looked so upset. Henry's response: "Because that dinosaur is going to eat him!"

More West Virginia pictures- Juner.

Mama forgot that she took both cameras on vacation and just found these pictures today.

PawPaw had to hold Henry to get him still for a picture.

X-treme BASE jumping stirs up an Xtreme appetite in Papa. Which can only be satiated by giant turkey legs.

My extreme appetite led me to eating dirt and glass.

Uncle Adam rocked it sling style. Those flowers look good on you.

The Turner family. You'll notcie that Henry is wearing two different colors of neon. That is totally on purpose in a crowd of 80,000.

Here's the best Cooper family shot. You can always guarantee at least one person is looking in the wrong direction.

Henry insisted on zipping up his vest on his own.

But PawPaw convinced him that he could help.

Our super West Virginia getaway- Henry.

We packed up and headed to West Virginia for a Cooper family vacation this weekend. We rented a cabin close to Mt. Nebo and in possibly some of the prettiest mountains we've ever seen.

The main highlight of our trip was this bridge- The New River Gorge Bridge. It's the longest single arch bridge in the Western Hemisphere. And if that's not enough, it's also 876 feet high.

Once a year, a whole bunch of crazy people get together to parachute, bungee, and zip line off the bridge. And tens of thousands more come to watch.

Count these 7 people among the craziest.

We spent hours peering over a way too low railing (in mama's opinion) down hundreds of feet at little specks of people aiming their parachutes at a little circle on the beach and hoping they didn't hit the water (and those scary looking rapids).

Mama overcame her fear of heights and walked the span of the bridge and even manged to look over the side (as long as someone was there holding on to her). See those guys doing backflips off the side?

These two guys wore bunny suits and jumped at the same time.

The guys (PawPaw, me, Papa, and Uncle Adam) all enjoyed the view.
Against their better judgment, I was allowed to perch on the bridge and look over the edge. Papa held me tight and mama stood 10 feet back panicking. At least we weren't the people with our toddlers on our shoulders holding them all the way over the edge.Despite the fact there were plenty of funnel cakes and ribbon fries available, I ate a few cheerios to give me the strength to cross the long bridge.

The rest of the weekend was no less spectacular. We stopped at the Sommersville Lake Dam. Here's the view on one side of the bridge.

And here's the view down the other side. This picture really does it no justice.

Aunt Katie and Sadie-Sade enjoyed the beautiful colors.

Team Turner looking good.

Meanwhile the other Turner kids spent some time wrestling- a new favorite pastime before bed.

What stinkers.

June continued on her reign as the girl who would eat anything.

Next to our cabin was the entrance of Carnifex Ferry Battlefield State Park. Although it was probably one of the most unremarkable battlefields we've ever visited (and there's been quite a few), the views of the river from on top of the mountain were pretty awesome.

Mama and Papa dumped us kids and got some hiking in. And when we took Nama and PawPaw back, we got to see some rafters braving the rapids.By this time, I was pretty tired and did not want to cooperate with any picture-taking.

But I did take some time to contemplate the beauty of nature and wonder if I was strong enough to throw rocks all the way down into the water.

When I got tired, PawPaw carried me.

This was the best lookout in the park.

Mama was impressed that the Union army actually ran up this mountain to fight the Confederates. Multiple times.

These stairs must have earned someone a couple Eagle Scout badges.

Back at the campsite, PawPaw and I built a great fire that lasted all night.

And we really got down to nature and I ate this huge bug! Okay, it's really a gummy bug, but it still looks kind of gross.

Always chomp its head first. After I finished off this bad boy, I tried to convince mama for another one, since this was technically only one piece of candy. It didn't work. But vacation did mean lax rules. I got to run inside the cabin, open the fridge, take a drink of my juice, return my cup to the fridge, and run back outside. I did this approximately 1,200 times. Just because I could.

The human vacuum tried something truly West Virginian- grits. GG Grandpa, you'll be glad to know that she loved them.

Sadie-Sade shares a cuddle with Nama. Unfortunately, both she and Uncle Adam came down with something and had to take off a little early. Mama was on the receiving end of Sadie's illness, if you know what I'm saying, but she held on tight, because Aunt Becky never lets a little girl puke alone. We hope you're feeling better Sades!
We sure had a great weekend! Same time next year?