fall adventures!!!

Cooper just loves his fall pumpkin that our neighbor grew for him in her garden. ofcourse he wants to eat it but what doesn't go into the mouth!?!

believe it or not our little coop is already 8 months where did the days go....

at the beginning of the month we met up with some of our friends for a great fall day at the apple orchard and pumpin patch. Cooper loved the time there. he wanted to crawl over all of the pumpkins and didn't quite get why he was smaller then they were. he liked to beat on them. He loved the apples - one of his favorite treats to eat!!! It was fun to get out and enjoy the beautiful colors and time with our friends!

We are so proud of our little man! i think we have to be the happiest parents. Its hard to even imagine life without Cooper - we went to these same places last year when we were expecting him. I remember looking at the children running around and the little babies thinking 'what will this little person be like? will we be able to handle this? will he like us?' so many questions and here we are a year later so blessed with the best boy in the world. Everything he does is so amazing and we cherish it so much! He is such an easy going child - so laid back and loves to go everywhere. We just LOVE him!!! :)

1st famous debut!

So even though the article is stupid and completely doesn't display the great time we had on friday evening with our neighbors Cooper made his first debut as a local celebrity in the Star Tribune. Our neighbor noticed the star tribune was looking for people that were going to use their bonfire pits over the weekend as they wanted to do a story on it. So she replyed saying we were going to be using our firepit and actually had planned our fall block party. We blocked of the street and had about 75+ people come out for the potluck and had 5 bonfire pits out to enjoy the beautiful fall evening and fellowship with neighbors. We had a wonderful time and no one complained - though the story made it seem different... even still fun to get Cooper on the front page of the paper!!! I am now just waiting for the baby model agencies to call - how couldn't they with that face!!!

here is the link to the dumb story: http://www.startribune.com/local/30870774.html

always on the move

Crazy to believe Cooper is
already 7 months - well almost 8! He is on the move everywhere these days. He is very into his toys and can figure out what to do with each. He loves his Wood beads that wind through the metal. He knows just how to push the bead through. He also loves his ABC ball and Baseball tee. He has figured out to how crawl - well army crawl that is - his way over to his toy basket and pull out the toys he wants to play with. He also loves to go the the park and swing on the swings. He just laughs and laughs and laughs as we keep pushing him. He is such a sight to see when he is on the swing!!! As you can see from this picture below he crawls up onto the basket but then doesn't know how to get down. He ofcourse breaks into tears and we can't help but laugh at him. We know we know how mean are we...

Cooper loves to help out in
our garden or more so he loves to eat the leaves and grass around the area. Our big project last fall and this spring/summer has been redoing our flower box out front. It has turned out great! We also did veggie garden too. We are excited to teach cooper all about gardening and growing in the seasons ahead!
Coop still love his bathtime .

Auntie Ashley spotted a great bath chair (a circle thing he sits in and it keeps him upright) at a garage sale. This is his new favorite way to take a bath... he bring his rubber duckie and floating books and plays away. He was in there over a half hour the other night - we had to drag him out. He has also figured out how to take of his socks and leave them everywhere - just like his papa! He is 'talking' more and more every day - he says mama and dada - often in a babbling way but that is okay right!?!

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!!!!!!