Introducing Cecilia.

Before we finish our Thanksgiving update, we have a confession. We've been feeling pretty bad that we haven't sent out an official blog welcome to our newest friend- Cecelia Joy.

Cecelia was born October 23 (over a month ago, we know. We're sorry Miss Jennifer!). We wish we could be back in Wisconsin to give you a squeeze, Cecelia, but we'll settle for checking your new blog for updates on life with your 3 older sisters!

Check out our newest link for some of the cutest Packer cheerleaders we've ever seen at the Family of Pink.

Thanksgiving at the Coopers-June.

Sorry for the long stretch between updates! We headed back to Ohio for Thanksgiving and mama took a break from blogging for a while. Here's what we've been up to.

We started out by driving to Columbus and spending the night at Aunt Katie and Uncle Adam's house. All of our parents were impressed that Henry, Sadie and I all slept together in one room. It's a wonder what kids will sleep through when they don't go to bed until 10:30 pm.

We visited an indoor playground on Wednesday (Aunt Kate, did you get any good pictures?) and then we headed up to Nama and PawPaw's house.

Before we had our Thanksgiving feast, we celebrated Henry's 3rd birthday! Henry was a little reluctant to put on the birthday cake hat until mama told him he couldn't open any presents unless it was on his head. Then he refused to take it off.
Henry got a lot of fun presents, but unlike prior years, he realized when there were more presents to open. Which meant he'd rip open a present, say thank you, drop it and look for more. (We assure all of you gift givers that he has had a chance to open up most of the presents now and they are a big hit.)Aunt Girl scored this car that not only races across the room, but also plays a really long clip of "Rock around the Clock." That culminated in hours of Henry roping any willing person to sit in the hallway and race the car back and forth. With Aunt Girl, the car always came up to fast, "knocking" her over, which was met with many, many, many excited choruses of "Are you okay? Are you okay? Are you OKAY?"

Mama and Aunt Katie decorated this special racetrack cake for Henry's birthday. They were really pleased at how well it turned out.

Mama was so pleased that Henry has started singing "Happy Birthday" to himself and joined in when the candles were lit in his honor.

Mama took every chance she could to get a cuddle in with Baby Sades. Sadie upped the cute factor by giving her new baby kisses.

Then Sadie ditched the football and headed out to the porch to soak up some sun.

She even (sort of) tolerated it when mama tried to sneak hair barrettes in our hair.

And where was I all weekend? I was hanging out Mister Anthony.

And taking baths (again Aunt Kate, send over those cute pics of me and Sadie in the tub!)

And playing "Whoa Horsey" with GG.

And just acting silly with PawPaw.

We stuck around the Cooper's a little longer because mama wasn't feeling well (she ate so much junk food on Tuesday and Wednesday, she didn't even really get to enjoy the Thanksgiving meal, but she didn't enjoy sleeping the rest of the day). But we liked spending extra time with our GG's.

And in keeping with the season, here's the top 5 things we're thankful for at the Cooper Thanksgiving party:
1. That the kids went down for a nap before dinner was served so Mama and Papa got to eat without anyone demanding more jello.
2. That PawPaw has such an engaging basement filled with great toys. We probably saw Henry for about 2 hours all weekend.
3. That Henry's word knack has spilled over into nicknames for the whole family. Grandma is now "Grams Crackers" and PawPaw is now "Pawps."
4. Turkey, GG's cranberry jello, Aunt Tia's scalloped cabbage, Aunt Kate's Fruit Pizza, and Nama's Candy Sweet Potatoes.
5. That everyone was able to spend a great day with us!

School pictures.

Henry had his pictures taken at school, and let's just say they weren't that successful.

This one looks like his teachers had to bribe him with a trip to the playground and he reluctantly agreed to have hispicture taken, but don't you think for one second that he's going to like it.

This one turned out better. But considering they were asking $20 for 1- 5x7 and 2 wallets, we declined. Instead, we scanned the prints and treated ourselves to mint chocolate chip milkshakes from Chick-Fil-A instead. (Hint, hint, papa.)

Art update.

So my original plan of scanning Herny's artwork as he created it didn't really work out. The pile was getting unruly (and that much uncontained pper around June is really just asking for it), so today's naptime was devoted to scanning. Here's some of the latest masterpieces.

From School:

"Scarecrow"

"Halloween Stamps"

"Glued-on Turkeys"

"Pumpkin with glue squares"

"A Fruit-ful Spirit?"

"I'm a crazy candy corn man. Give me some candy!"

"Turkey" (abstract)

Art from the Science Museum:

Rubbing from the Dinosaur exhibit. Henry is really into dinosaurs these days. Our favorite book is Dinosaurumpus, a story that is about dinosaurs having an all night dance party- obviously. In addition to his love for dinos, Henry likes to mix up words too. So everything is rhymed. We can't say "Dinosaurumpus," we have to say "Dinosaurgunkus." This morning, we went upstairs to get Juners out of bed and Henry just kept yelling "Oboozeegus" over and over. When I finally aked him what he meant, he explained that Oboozeegus means "Mama, Papa, Juner, me!" Pretty cute.

"Giraffe" from Science Storybook.

Art from home:

"Pumpkin" collaboration of Henry and Mama. Henry drew the left eye and the smile.

The famous curious George stamp set and a few finger stamps.

"Dots and Stickers" from the Mama's clever trick collection. I figured out that I can keep Herny occupied for a good 20 minutes if I tell him to make dots all over the paper then cover each dot with a tiny sticker.

Henry's Super Reader certificate. He earned this from playing the online games for SuperWhy. "More Dots and Stickers" I'm really pleased with this one because this is the first drawing where it looks like he's actually trying to stay inside the lines of George instead of just scribbing all over the page. There's hope for Henry's creative side yet.

Today-June.

Today started out very early- around 3 am. I was just in a mood. I didn't want to sleep, I didn't want to be awake, I didn't want to nurse, I didn't want to cuddle, I didn't want to be alone. I just wanted to cry and keep everybody awake. I was miserable until about 6am when papa decided to give up and just get up with me. But then when everyone else got up, I was pretty tired. So after breakfast, I went back to bed and Henry and mama got busy working on things.

They sorted laundry, cleaned out the dishwasher, vacuumed the carpet and made cupcakes.

Well, mama made cupcakes and Henry stood beside her trying to get his spoon in the batter. Big help, Henry. Mama currently has a dilemma regarding the cupcakes. They are for Henry's class, because it's our holiday to bring in the treat. Mama has frosting and sprinkles for the cupcakes, but we all know it's not going to be enough. We know all the other kids will bring in goodie bags and really cute turkey themed crafts. (You know who you are! We already saw it on your blog!) So what do you think? Are the cupcakes enough? Or do we need to make an emergency run to the store to buy candy corn in an effort to keep up with the rest of our talented and devoted class of 2 year olds?

We gave up debating the issue for a while and mama headed outside to work on the laundry. When she came back, Henry had donned her winter wardrobe staple- her fuzzy pink slippers. Although they look good with his new Beatles t-shirt, we're not sure if the fuzzy slipper boot is a good idea for anyone.

But I thought he looked good.

In another effort to keep Henry quiet while I slept, mama let him get the stamps out. He did a good job until Curious George got boring and he decided to do finger stamps instead (he gets to do this at school). Now we have a full set of fingerprints for when Henry commits his first felony and a good look at what his goth stage will look like.

That ink did not rinse off, but it did make these radishes taste a little better. They were a prerequisite for Henry's dessert cupcake. Henry likes radishes well enough because he ate one from Great Grandma Wagner's garden and he still talks about it. But neither of us hanker for butter and radish sandwiches like mama does.

Aunt Jenni bet I wouldn't eat cooked radishes, but I did. She said it doesn't count because I don't taste my food, I just inhale it. But she's wrong, because I did reject my first food this morning. I do not like the peach puffs mama just opened. I like the banana and sweet potato varieties- but don't even bother giving me the peach ones.

How romantic-Henry.

With this new Twilight movie coming out, we're being inundated with dreamy pictures of vampires looming over a cute teenage girl and probably contemplating whether he's going to bite her or kiss her. Phew.

Anyhoo, in a effort to counteract the glamorization of vampires (and to discourage any cute girls from every wanting to kiss me in the future), we recreated a few steamy shot of our own. Mama says she has to get all the kisses she can now, before I get embarrassed (why would I ever be embarrassed of those two?). Papa says she's overdoing it, because today when we set up my train track, i told him the road signs read "I love you" and "Give me a kiss". This is on top of the guard rails that already mean "Pay the toll- give mama a kiss."

Here's our first shot. I'm a little off on my aim.

But it certainly did the trick for mama. (It looks like a shower might also do the trick.)
Now here's a little magic for papa.

After that last picture, I was worried my parents might make me kiss my sister next, so I took off down the stairs to get away. Unfortunately, I missed the last three steps and fell on my head.Love hurts.Luckily, Bob the Builder (with help from my Boo Bear) was there soothed my pain. Oh, and cookies helped too. Thanks Aunt Jenni for the awesome pumpkin chocolate chip recipe.

Sweet Baby Juner.

We stayed up late last night with Miss Susan and June woke up extra early this morning, so she couldn't help but fall asleep this morning. And mama couldn't help but set her up to take some pictures. We could go on and on about how much we like baby Juner and how sweet she is, but we'll let the pictures do the talking.