summer time fun

here we are at the end of august - well actually beginning of september. We've had a wonderful summer together as a family. This is such a fun time to be cooper's parents. He is learning more and more everyday. We have really gotten into gardening and have turned a bunch of boxes into beautiful gardens. Last summer kevin built above ground boxes for our veggies. Cooper has had a ton of fun gardening with us. He really loves to dig in the dirt. He also likes to help pick weeds. Well more so I pick the weeds and put some in his bucket and then he gives it back to me so proud of himself for picking what he did! :) He is getting good at picking the cherry tomatoes and eating them. however his favorite thing to pick is our neighbors raspberries!

He is becoming so much more active. We bought him a little tikes orange/yellow coop car that he could live in if we let him! he now gets in it dukes of hazard style by jumping over the side that the door doesn't open! :) He can go up and down stairs without a problem. we have tried to teach him to go down on his 'bootie'. he is learning to push his luck and is trying to walk up and down them now. ofcourse we have a few bumps and bruises to prove it. He can stack his blocks super high in the air and loves to knock them down.

He is becoming so much more vocal. he started out w/ a few words - ma,da, cat, dog, ball, cup and now will stay 'get in here now'. he also loves loves loves to sing songs and dance. we are always turning on the music to jam together. His fav songs to sing are twinkle twinkle little star and old mcdonald. he knows how to say 'up above' right along with the song... even when i am rocking him to sleep. he also sings 'e-i-e-i-o' and will walk around singing that all day! :) he still jabbers alot and we dont know a lot of what he says but is fun to be able to communicate with him more.

probably one of his biggest accomplishments this summer is that he can swim... pretty much on his own. we started off the summer in his floaty boat where he sat. at first he was afraid and cried a lot but we got him used to the water. soon enough he was kicking around the water all on his own. we thought we'd try his 'turtle' jacket (as see above) to see how he would do. we had to hold him a lot to get used to that but soon enough he was done w/ us holding him and away he went. swimming and kicking all over the place - he was doing this by 16 months! its amazing to see the fear this boy doesn't have (sometimes dangerous lack of fear too!!!) he is a true fish - maybe the next michael phelps?

there really are no words to describe how much we love cooper - he really is the best addition to our lives. together we learn to love him more and more daily. being his parent is a true blessing and we are so honored God choose us to be his mommy and daddy.

more pictures soon of our summer travel adventures...