Yummness

I am LOVING white chocolate reese's right now. Wow. Way too much Christmas chocolate and sugar, but man I love it.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from the Coopers!

November/Fall

LOVE Josh's cranky face.

Josh dressed up Matthew. :)

"Smile Caleb!" hehe works every time.

Making butter with Daddy on Thanksgiving.

The yummiest sweet potatoe cassarole in the universe! Found on http://www.howsweeteats.com/. Love that blog!

Seriously, this was the most beautiful Fall day and the pictures were turning out perfect. What a fun day.

Chubby sleepy stretches

Dress up time. He looks like that Halloween book, "the hat goes nod nod, the gloves go clap clap."

The boys love their Aunt Carmel

And of course the day is not complete without a trip to Chicago in the cupboards. :)

Josh's Birthday Bash

So I'm pretty sure I wrote a little about Josh's birthday parties earlier, but here are the pictures. His friend birthday party I think there was 14 kids all total. It was crazy, but a lot of fun. Thank you Carmel and Cassie!! Cassie did all the decorating and they both kept me sane. Little kids are SO much fun!

Pin the beak on the penguin.

The igloo tent was very popular.

Penguin cupcakes made with nilla wafers, gummi orange slices and sprinkles. :)

Josh's party with the family. Marshmallow igloos on top. They slightly resemble pom poms, but it was fun, hehe.

And of course, my little mountain man helping me with the cake. I look up and he has taken some liberties with the spoon I gave him to lick. Haha. I LOVE my little four year old guy!

Happy Birthday Josh! I'm so glad you have been with us now for so long, waking us up early every day, talking our ears off, making us laugh like crazy at your insane comments and being such a protective big brother. Not to mention an incredible helper and wanting to learn everything about everything. We learn so much from you! LOVE YOU! Love, Mama (and Daddy too)

You Gotta Watch

Lyrics: "happy birthday to you" with a mash up of "wish away," however I don't know where that song comes from. :)

Prayers and Persuasion

Tyson and I love to read together and the most current book we are reading is "Inheritance," the last book in the Eragon series. It is a lot of fun to read it with Tyson because he can read really fast during the action parts and it makes it exciting. We don't get to read together a whole lot because Tyson is taking classes right now and the only time he can work on homework is after the kids are in bed. And since he is taking two classes right now, he does homework until really late. (Only a week and a half left until he is done, hooray!)

Well, so, the night before last we read a few chapters after he is done with his homework for the evening and I fall asleep listening to Tyson read. I remember very little of this, but Tyson says he woke me up so I would go to bed and I shot up and sped walked to the back, got under the covers then shot up, ran back to the dining room and unplugged the laptop (I remember thinking in my head it was going to start a fire and I thought I had saved us all, haha, who knows I guess). Then I dove back into bed. Tyson asked me to say the prayer and apparently I prayed for Eragon to be safe, I prayed that Matthew would be safe from Galbatorix and yes, I said I was SO thankful for Alegesia (I don't remember the correct spelling for that). Pretty funny huh? Tyson was dying laughing and I was so embarressed when he told me what I had said. Guess I like the book more than I realized. Hehe

So the next morning I wake up and I feel sicker than ever (I have had a cold, and lost my voice, nothing serious). I can't stop coughing and I needed to take Josh to preschool and go grocery shopping, something I didn't feel like doing in the rain, coughing up a storm and dragging the two little ones with me who for sure would start crying or throwing fits I was sure.

So I tried to convince Tyson, as I do every day, that I want him to stay home with me. He, like he always does, says "that would be nice wouldn't it?" And I think "um, yes, it would. Do you really need to work? Um, no, I don't think so. One day off won't hurt anyone." But I don't say anything, because that isn't nice. I am really thankful he does work so hard and he is dependable and doesn't let me be a wimp. So I do my best to quench my cranky thoughts and try to prepare myself to take care of three little kids and run my errands like I'm not sick.

So Tyson gets all ready for work, kisses me and the kids and walks out the door in the rain. I watch him walk away, allow myself 10 seconds of self pity, then put the kids in the bath and get their clothes ready. Suddenly in walks Tyson and he says "would you mind if I stayed home and took care of you this morning?" He is wearing this totally confident grin that he gets when he knows he has done something amazing and surprised me to boot. (I have a severe addiction to surprises, I LOVE them).

Yes, I hugged him super tight and cried because it was so nice to know I wouldn't be alone. And there is no one I would rather be with than him. It would have been even more perfect if we didn't need to go grocery shopping and take Josh to preschool because then he would have been with me the whole time. But it was SO nice to take a shower without worrying about the kids and to just sleep/relax with little Matthew. It is so weird to think that 4 years ago that was my life, just one little guy.

So here is my shout out to my husband for putting up with my craziness and letting me persuade him to take the morning off of work to take care of me. Hooray for my handsome hunk of a husband!

Been Too Long

I didn't realize just how busy being a mother of three is. I need to make more time to write though, there is so much I will forget and already have. I love my three little boys, the are just so stinking hilarious.

I need to download pictures, but Josh just turned 4 on Tuesday. He had his first friend birthday party and it was awesome! I think we had 13 kids total (including my 3), which was crazy so luckily I had Cassie and Carmel here to help. They saved my life for sure. We played pin the beak on the penguin and a few other games with ice and goldfish. It was pretty fun. I can't believe Josh is 4 already, it makes me feel old. Most days I don't even feel like a mom, like I just have a permanent babysitting job or something.

Caleb has out of no where gotten really opinionated and very picky. He throws tantrums and such, but nothing too horrible. He threw one right when we walked into Walmart the other day and I was so scared (my first time with all 3 by myself on a "real" grocery trip). One of the workers, an older lady, distracted him and I wish I had gotten her name, she was such a lifesaver. But for the most part he is a pretty smiley little guy.

Matthew is REALLY smiley. He makes me so happy. He just stares at me and watches me clean or cook or read and just smiles whenever I look at him. He rarely smiled for the first two months of his life, so I just treasure each one like they are worth a million bucks. I can't believe how lucky I am to have my 3 boys. And Tyson, well, every second of every day I have no clue how I got lucky enough to have him. He gets more and more perfect every day, I don't know how that is possible.

Oh, so some good quotes from the boys lately:
Josh:
"I am the king of the United States of America!"
"I'm in my room, thinking about my life. I want a new mom and dad."
(me: "Josh, thanks for putting Matthew's pacifier back in.") Josh: "oh I couldn't find it." Me: "Then why is he quiet?" Josh: "Oh, I put his blanket on his mouth and pushes it down so I couldn't hear him. I don't like the screaming." (scary huh? We had a talk about not covering Matthew's face anymore)
(when I find him in the cupboard) "Mom, close the door, I am a spider and I am going to jump out and eat Caleb."
"This picture is a song of a bird, and this one is the sound of the wind rushing by." (guess what song he learned in primary? :) )

Caleb:
"It's Christmas time! It's present time! It's singing time! Lala la!" (and he spins in a circle)
"It's my birthday too!" (all day on Josh's birthday, Caleb could not comprehend that it wasn't for him too.) :)