The Chick Magnet

Last year Cooper was the Hockey Monkey and this year we wanted to try to top the previous year. So we started to think about costumes. We had picked up a chicken costume earlier in the year but we were not quite sure we were 100% sure of the costume. That was until we came up with an addition to the chicken costume.

You see we live in a neighborhood with a lot of girls and Cooper has already made friends with most of them. In fact the girls come to our house and ask if Cooper can come out and play. A couple of weeks ago, Cooper and I were out in the front yard and the school bus came by and the windows were down. All of the sudden we heard "COOPER" coming from the bus. It was a bunch of the neighborhood girls yelling at Cooper. Cooper just looked up at me and smiled. The big yellow bus was talking to him. Because of this we came up with the additional item to Cooper's Halloween costume, a magnet.

Yep, as you can see Cooper went trick or treating for the first time as a "Chick-Magnet" We started by going to see Auntie Ann at Friendship Village. Cooper has been there many times to see his aunt but as we walked in the doors, we realized it was just a little different. Residents were scattered up and down the hallways with bowls of candy. Cooper knew right what to do. He walked up to each resident and waited for the resident to lower the bowl to him. Once in a while he would get a little impatient and not wait for the other kids to finish picking their candy but over all he did great. We made it half way around the nursing home and there was auntie Ann waiting to eat dinner. Cooper went right up to show her his costume. After taking some pictures Cooper was ready to go look for more candy. So off he went down the other hallways to fill his plastic pumpkin (no not Harold). Soon Cooper was done, we said our goodbyes to Grandma and Auntie Ann and off we went to trick or treat in our neighborhood.

Once we got home, we were off. The first place Cooper wanted to go was over to Kelsey and Mckenzie's home to see a couple of his favorite neighbors. This was Cooper's first Trick or Treat house. Cooper on his own walked up to the door and even though he couldn't say the words, he knew what to do. He picked a Hershey candy bar and put it right into his bucket. After a couple of pictures he was off to other neighbors homes to fill his bucket. And fill his bucket he did. Cooper had a blast going door to door, so much fun he didn't want to go home. However, soon we got him home and he decided that he wanted to hand out candy. Thanks to many patient kids, Cooper was able to put candy in many kids bags that came to our house. Over all Cooper had a fun night. He was only scared once and that was when an adult was wearing a scream costume. Now we have to watch out because the pumpkin with his candy is on the fridge and knowing Cooper he will try to find a way to climb up and get it.

Enjoy the pictures, the kids in the pictures are some of the neighbor kids Cooper plays with. Enjoy!!

A Walk In The Park

Today Dad and I went to the park. As you can see it was a beautiful sunny day. I love being outside, and going to the park is always a ton of fun. When we drove into the parking lot and I saw all the slides, I squealed. Dad got out of the car and walked around and opened my door. I was already trying to get out of my car seat. Dad unbuckled me and off I went running to the slides. Not the little slide but the biggest slide of all. You see when it comes to slides, I like to climb up the tallest one and then slide down on my belly. After sliding a dozen or so times, I heard a noise in the distance. I waited for dad and we walked towards the noise. As we got closer, I figured out what it was. Right away, I started to say quack, quack, quack. Yep ducks and lots of them. We walked down the path to a little lagoon branching off from the river. I walked across the little wooden bridge, not by myself, but I waited for dad and I needed to hold his hand.

Once across the bridge, I noticed something else. I saw another Cooper, however he was flat and on the ground. Dad soon told me that this was my shadow. I just stood and looked at my shadow on the ground and watched how it moved when I moved. Soon we started walking down a leaf covered pathway and being the little boy I am, I had to drag my feet through all the leaves. Dad actually let me walk all by myself. As I walked down the path I kept looking around at all the trees and once in a while I would tell dad to look up, at the geese flying by.

Within minutes I found a stick. Soon I was dragging it through the leaves banging on trees and waving it in the air. One stick wasn't enough, soon I had two sticks. Well Dad and I kept walking and soon I ran up to him and asked him to pick me up because I was tired. So Dad walked the last part of the trail with me on his shoulders. Once back in the park, we walked down to the lagoon and walked out on the dock. There were ducks and geese everywhere I looked. Soon though Dad made me leave and I was not happy about it. I tried to lay on the dock but that didn't work. Soon I was carried away, not by my choice. Once far enough from the dock, Dad put me down and we finished our walk by dragging our feet through the leaves back to the car. Enjoy the pictures everyone!!

Harold

We have a new friend in the Kost household. Although he will only be around for a short period of time, he has brought some excitement into the house. However two nights ago we ran into a small problem. We didn't have a problem, but Harold did and Cooper let us know about it. Okay, who is Harold and what was his problem? Well lets go back to last fall, When we took Cooper to a local apple orchard. It was at the orchard when Cooper was introduced to the pumpkin. It was round and so it must be a ball. Erin and I took numerous pictures of Cooper playing, staring and patting pumpkins. That was last year, two weeks ago we went to the same orchard and once again there were pumpkins, and apples, horses and apples, a tractor ride and apples (do you get the picture). Even though there were lots and lots of apples, the pumpkins got Cooper's attention. We didn't find any pumpkins we liked at the orchard so we went to another place to look for pumpkins. I wanted to find a pumpkin patch to let Cooper run through but we found a place off 169 in Jordon with rows and rows of pumpkins. Some of the pictures below are from that patch.

Okay so back to Harold. Cooper loves pumpkins, I think it is because he thinks it is a ball. So after picking our pumpkins and letting Cooper pull the wagon back up to the building to pay for them, we went home and put the pumpkins on our step. Cooper actually wanted to carry each pumpkin, however that wasn't going to happen. Where does Harold fit into the blog? I came home a couple of days later and was told that Cooper wanted to show me something in the closet. Cooper grabbed my finger and led me over to the coat closet and as I opened the door, there sitting on the floor was a hollow plastic pumpkin with a face carved into it and a power cord coming out the back. This is Harold, a plastic pumpkin that lights up. This is what brings more excitement into the house. At first Cooper was scared of Harold and he would come and either grab my finger or Erin's and walk us over to pumpkin. He would not get close to Harold but wanted us to touch Harold. Well after a couple of days, Cooper's new friend was Harold the pumpkin. If he is not plugged in when the sun went down, he comes over to us and wants us to plug him in. It has gotten to the point now that he will want Erin and I to come and sit in the dark living room and watch Harold. This was until 2 days ago when the light burnt out. So for the last two days Cooper was walking around with hands up in the air blabbering about Harold. Well as of tonight Harold was back on and as Cooper was on his way to bed he blew lots of kisses to Harold. As I sit here it makes me realize that sometimes we get too consumed with the business of life and don't take time to play with the little things in life, like light up Harold Pumpkins!! Here are some new pictures and of course a picture of Harold. As you can see Harold looks a little freaky for a pumpkin. But at night he looks pretty cool.

The First Cooper John Entry

Well this has been long time coming. I originally wanted to get a blog started many months ago, but never got around to it. Now with Cooper growing up and friends and family scattered all across the U.S. I figured I would take a few minutes to get a site up and running. Cooper is now 22 months and soon his 2nd birthday will be here. I can't believe he is almost 2, but then again I can't believe life without him. People who know me will say that I don't say very much so if you get more than a paragraph from me that will be something. But what you will get are lots of pictures and even some video from time to time. With friends in Seattle, Illinois and scattered around we hope this will help you watch Cooper grow. For family in California, Wisconsin, Iowa and other states we wish the same. Below are some pictures from our recent trip to Grand Rapids Minnesota. I went there to teach a workshop and brought Cooper and Erin along. The pictures were taken at the childrens museum, Judy Garlands birth place and a local pumpkin patch. Oh yeah, at the pumpkin patch they had a petting farm and we gave Cooper food to give to the goats, but Cooper ate it instead. I wish I would have had pictures of that. Enjoy the pictures and feel free to comment often.