Taking in the great outdoors

We got an outdoors man on our hands! Cooper has loved being outside since the weather was warm enough to be! We went on our first walk when the snow was just melting - pushing the stroller through puddles and all.

As you can see he loves the water. We have a little pool for him that he has enjoyed while being in his bumbo chair (since he can sit up but would rather not since moving around is much more fun.) When we were in florida in May he didn't want much to do with floating in the water but now he loves it! we got a great float that works perfect for him. He didn't want us to be hold onto him at all - as you can tell by the pic he just loves floating around!!! Such a big man!!!

HE loves to lay on the grass ofcourse to eat it too!!! We lay him down on a blanket though we always wonder why because he just crawls his way to the grass and eats it. It's hard to keep him out of it!

We think one of his favorite past time is swinging. He loves to walk to the park and swing in the swing - just like he is in the pic below. He laughs and laughs and laughs!!! and drolls everywhere too!! It is soo fun!

and ofcourse he loves to be "nakey coopie" and crawl all over the place!

meeting the Cullinane's

(L)Cooper spending time with Cousin Delaney

(Below) Cooper and Chanel holding hands in the baby pool
(Left) Cooper and his great auntie Ei

Cooper and great uncle bill!

(Left) Cooper with his great aunt amy and cousin Mckenna

(below) Cooper with Great auntie jane

(left) Cooper and his godmother/auntie ashley with her Godfather/great uncle jim

We went to milwaukee area last August to introduce Cooper to all the Cullinanes! (and there is a lot considering my dad is one of nine!) We had a great time! We (kev, coop, ash and i) crashed with my aunt, uncle and cousins while my dad and ry stayed with my other aunt, uncle and cousins. We went to the Milwaukee County Zoo (my 2 aunts, ash, myself and 8 children from the ages of 10 year to 6 months) while the guys went golfing - not sure who drew the short card there? ;)

(left) Cooper's first zoo trip!!!

We then had a family bbq at my uncle bill and aunt amy's that evening. Saturday we enjoyed the sunshine at my Godfather's house - Uncle David and Aunt Darlene's. it was a beautiful day and great way to spend the weekend. Ofcourse Cooper is already becoming 'corrupted' by his Irish Cullinane great uncles!!!!!

The kids!!! (Left to Right) Chanel (11 months) Connor (5 years) McKenna (10 years) Caden (14 months) Ciera (3 years) Delaney (6 years) Cooper (6 months) and Christian (3 years)

Just a family tree update - Cooper is the first great grandchild (my grandpa and grandma cullinane passed away many years ago so sadly they haven't meet many of their grandchildren nor their great grandchildren) the grandchild range from 28 years to 11 months (yep that is right the grandchildren and great grandchildren are very close in age! kinda fun that the youngest grandchildren are the same age as the oldest greatgrandchild)

(left) Cooper "under the influence" of Great uncles Pat and Dennis

Cooper did wonderful w/ the trip - especially considering he was cutting 2 teeth at the same time!!!!!

We had a great time and hope to get down there again soon!!! or to have our family up here too!! Love to all our Cullinane great aunts and uncles!!!!!

6months already

it is so hard to believe that our cooper is 6 months already. i remember just last summer while studying for boards, eating tomatoes, cucumbers and carrots in italian dressing what the little someone was going to be in my belly. dreaming of all the possiblities this little creature could become. I would sit and stare at this picture of his/her face wondering what it face was going to be like, who's eyes would he/she have. would there be hair and would i know how to mother... so any things and so many thoughts and here we are here we are a year later and Coop is 6 months already...


When he was born - after17 hours of labor and 2.5 hours of labor i was so overwhelmed. the poor boy didn't have a name for 8 hours because we couldn't decide. it is such a big decisions that literally effects a child for the rest of their life. i didn't know how to make that decision!!! now we couldn't imagine him being anything else but Cooper - coop or coopie








I have had to go through clothes again to pull out more things that do not fit him. it is sad in a lot of ways to see just how big our little coop is getting and how fast. I remember looking at some of the clothes thinking "he'll never fit in these" and here they are too small already!! and we never even to got see him in premie clothes and only about 1 week of newborn clothes (he was a oinker at 8lb 14oz!)



He really is a great kid! we can't complain too much. he cut 2 more teeth over the last week so he hasn't been his usually happy go lucky baby. meaning he cries a little more and wants to be held (esp when he naps) but still he is amazing. We like to say he is 'high maintaince' but we know he is far from it!!! only thing he is high maintaince about is eating - still won't take a bottle from his mama (as kev says he want the booby milk) he takes the bottle great from other people though (thank God!) in the last few weeks he has also got to adventure into eating food - he has tried squash, carrots, green peas and green beans. He doesn't really like any of them much at first but he always wants more!!!

He has mastered the art of rolling around and has started the army crawl places. In ways we are surprised he doesn't crawl crawl yet - however we know life changes once that happens so we wouldn't hurry him too much!!! :)

He just loves to be outside. We have found when all else fails in trying to get him to calm down and stop crying we just bring him outside and lay him on the grass and he loves it. He will lay there on his back for 20 minutes with his arms out just in awe of the sky, trees and heavens above. He really seems to be at peace when he is out there.





You can see here that about 5 months he was completely bald and started to grow back his blonde locks of hair - just like his papa!!!

He has developed quite the personality these days!!! He can make us laugh for hours. He has a jumper-roo that he absolutely loves (thanks hallins!) he can jump forever in that think and do his 'irish jig' dance in it! We can also make him laugh by putting the blanket over his face and saying "where's cooper? where's cooper?" pull the blanket away..." there he is!!!" he'll laugh everytime!!!!! it is hilarious!!!!

thanks for taking a little walk down the months of cooper - we love him so much!!!!! Enjoy his smile as much as we do!!!!!!

kidney follow up for the wee-man!

as many of you know when i was pregnant they noticed something called 'pyelectasis' on my prenatal ultrasound. it is a collection of fluids in the renal pelvis (kidney). they monitored it closely while i was pregnant and it stayed present but his kidney continued to function fine - noted by the amount of amniotic fluid present (which is urine from the baby) since we was born he was put on a low dose of amoxicillin to help prevent a urine infection - which can be associated with the fluid in the kidney. we had to bring him in at 5 weeks of age for follow up. he had to have a kidney ultrasound - which showed the left kidney to still be enlarged with fluids. A VCUG - which checks for urine reflex (where the urine would back up from the bladder to the kidney - not good can cause an infection) NOT PRESENT! AMEN! he also had a lasix renogram - which monitored the function of the kidneys. this looked good too - his left kidney was still a bit sluggish but working great. we met w/ dr. shukla - the ped urologist who gave the okay to stop the amoxicillin (poor cooper he loved this stuff!) and he said then that he wanted him back at 6 months for a follow up ultrasound to monitor the status of the left kidney.

well 6 months has already come believe it or not! we went in last week and this time he only had to have the renal (kidney) ultrasound and we met w/ dr. shukla. the US still showed that he had fluid on the one kidney thought it wasn't worse. Dr. shukla was happy with it and wants to keep monitoring cooper so we'll go back when Cooper is a year old. Dr. S was also happy because cooper hasn't had any infections or illnesses since he was born. Cooper did wonderful and loved not having the catheter and IV placed this time. It was also fun for mom because he got to see all the people she works with!!!

Also Cooper was 18 lbs!!! we take him in on 8/13 for his 6 month check up!

meeting new family and saying good-bye

Cooper and his cousins slate and sierra

one of our favorite days of the summer is when our family dana, mark, slate and sierra come home for the summer from kenya and our least favorite it when they have to go. sadly enough we had to say our goodbyes last weekend ofcourse w/ lots of tears. Cooper fell in love with his auntie and cousins this summer and misses them so much! ofcourse we do too!!! we are already counting down when they get to come back!!! 10 months! june 2009 - to think of how different he'll be then!!!

Cooper and great auntie dana

one fun part of them being here is all the new family cooper got to meet -his great aunt annette, his cousin kacey and her daughter (his 2nd cousin once removed i guess is the term) ainsley. we did all sorts of fun things this summer when everyone was in town - bbq, downtown days, ride on the light rail, swimming, twins games and so much more!

Cooper with GGma (great grandma joan) and Ainsley

Cooper with great auntie annette, cousin megan and great auntie ginny

Coop also got to see his cousins madison and ella when they came down to visit and skate at their skating competition. he was super excited to have them at his house and for them to meet his kittys - lucy and gracie! They even did a dance show for him at auntie courtney's house and he laughed and laughed and laughed!!!

cooper and madison

cooper and ella

here is a link to check out even more pics of our man cooper!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2045591&l=c083e&id=63804669

2nd tooth already!

Well our little weeman continues to keep up the growing. he popped he 2nd bottom tooth on sunday. we looked around 3 oclock and it wasn't there and at 4 it was! what a growing man! he got to meet his 2nd cousin ainsley this past week she is 21 months and loved her "baby coopter"! we had a lot of fun with her in town.

we also took cooper to his 3rd twins game - we went w/ my aunt dana, uncle mark, cousins sierra and slate. the smoked the rangers! cooper loved it. slept for a while, ate, looked around wide eyed and then slept again. 3rd twins game in 5 months of age. amazing!

Coop is also rolling everywhere! he still hasn't really figured out the sitting up piece of things so we'll keep practicing that. one of his favorite new things is cuddling in bed in the mornings with mommy and papa. we know we know bad habit but it is so fun! today he let me feed him at 7:30 and then we went back to sleep until 10:15!!! no complaints on my behalf!!!

Hope you are enjoying the sunny days!

Our man coop is 5 months already!

this is cooper with cousins slate and sierra he was so excited they came back from kenya to spend the summer with him!

coop getting ready for bath time

that is our man!

it is amazing to believe but cooper is already 5 months! He has had quite the adventures over the last months - many trips up north to see family and friends, flew to florida, trips to the parks, walks and lots of love and attention. really he is the best boy ever! we are so blessed to have him in our lives - i hardly remember what life was like before him. he sleeps through the night ( most of the time! ) eats great and loves to play. we have been doing rice cereal with him a few times a week. Last night the 2oz of milk kevin mixed with the cereal wasn't enough so i had to quick make more for him. even after that he wanted more! what a piggie!!!

he is rolling everywhere these days. and is a 'mover and a shaker'. when we took him in for his 4 months visit he was 15 lbs 5oz (60%) and 25 3/4 inches (80%) i am sure he is starting to push 16 1/2 lbs by now! he loves to play in his exersaucer and jump up chair. he is also a fan of the bumbo chair - though his all time favorite would still have to be his bouncy/vibrating chair. we wonder what we'll do when he out grows it. our biggest news to share he is he cut his first tooth today - you can't see much of it but trust me it is there! we are so proud! poor little man is drooling on everything!

cooper continues to do great with daycare. he has lots of friends there and really seems to enjoy himself. we are adjusting as well to being away - though starting this week i am going to have most wednesday off so i am excited for mommy and coopie time! coop gets lots of times with papa too.

we'll be back to share more soon - thanks for checking in!

for other stuff look at our old blog: cooperdrake.zoomshare.com