Amy's wedding

Over Thanksgiving break we went on a Midwest adventure!!!

it started out in Indiana where my beautiful sister and parents live! She is in the best high school show choir in the State and they had their big dinner and performance on Saturday and Sunday!! It was probably the most amazing performance I have ever seen in a high school setting!! These kids were amazing!!! The choreography was phenom. They put ALOT of time and effort into it!!!! I have her Varsity Singers button on my purse, where it will stay forever, if you wanna see it just ask, i show it off like shes my own kid, I'm so dang proud of her!!!!

My Mom's mom Grandma Granzow came up (probably more over than up) from Iowa for the show too!! It was awesome to get to see her and My mom's sister Leitha!! They are amazing to drive all that way for Rachel

Then on Monday Nick went home, he had some classes that he couldn't get out of, and the kids and I hitched a ride with my parents and sister to Nauvoo, IL for my cousin Amy's wedding!!! It was amazazing!!! She looked beautiful (see bottom picture)

We had an eventful time there in the one day we got to spend there lol, We had a bachelorette party on Monday night ... where we went out to dinner at the only place to eat in the whole town that was open, and they were going to close at 7!! luckily we got there at 6:30 and made em stay open a little later!! then we played games till about 9 or 10, whoooooohoooooo lol, but it really was a great time, Amy has some awesome friends that came down to help with things and Her husband is amazing and a lucky guy!!!
This picture below is my grandma O! It was great to be able to spend so much time with everyone. My family is a blast!

Then after IL, we headed to Iowa for Thanksgiving at Grandma O's house! where i didn't take any picture, i might be stealing some off of facebook here in a bit! Then Friday we all caravaned back up to Michigan where Amy had a reception at the church, which was Saturday, and we set up all day on saturday and partied all night!!
whew, it was such a busy week. seriously, its been nice this week to just sit at home, i wish they would move Christmas back to January this year, cuz im so not ready for it at all!!!

Cooper and Wil had a blast dancing at the party! Coop was a riot, danced with everyone mooched food from EVERYONE!!! hes lucky he's cute so his mooching works!!

Halloween

This is turning out to be quite the long post with all these pictures! But we will start with one of Wil and I. With the new camera i bought that day! I lost my camera, and after looking and looking and looking and crying and looking Nick told me to just go get a new one! Cuz we seriously couldn't miss out on pictures of the biggest weekend in Wil's 3 years of life lol. He has been talking about shaving his head to be like the airbender for over a month, and he has been planning on being the airbender for halloween for longer! So after we got a new camera! We set out to shave the airbender's head for our playgroup party the next morning!
Had to cut it into a Mohawk first! couldn't miss that shot! We were nervous that Wil would freak out, he hates hates hates getting his hair cut, never lets me use the clippers (in his case the bzzzzzerezz) He acts like everyone of his hairs has a nerve in it and that it is literally killing him when i cut his hair.... So, needless to say we were expecting the worse. We taped a picture of the airbender costume on the mirror, so he could focus on the goal. But he ended up being so excited and pumped for this that he did great, sat still and acted like a normal kid. hes prolly been playin me all along

His hair was so long, it was kinda hard for me to do it, but it looks great, he has a nice shaped head, so no worries!

This is Cooper's pumpkin! This is my favorite pic of all time i think, i like the lighting, i love the little pumpkin face. ima use it for my desktop background for years to come. it makes me smile

Airbender the pumpkin! (seriously this kid is obsessed)

Twinsies!

Cooper had to have his face painted too, so nick tryed to draw a clownish thing on there. He looks like a hot mess in this pic, but at least he has his clothes on, he usually doesn't.... lol

Then last minute Nick thought it would be a good idea if he dressed up as Appa
the airbenders giant flying water buffalo! lol So i took the idea and ran with it. i got a big queen sized blanket (cuz we needed a new one for our bed anyways) and made an Appa backpack out of it!

This is us! at the trunk-or-treat at church! I dressed up as Jesse to go with Cooper as Buzz Lightyear and then we have the airbender and Appa!!

Wil absolutally LOVED Appa, and Nick hillariously bent down for every pic lol. Wil was in heaven, it was a blast, and so worth all the work to see how happy he was

Aang and Buzz trick-or-treating on our block! Cooper is really into Toy Story and especially Buzz, he has the blankets for his bed and a stuffed Buzz that he sleeps with, He flys around the house pretending to be Buzz and talks like buzz before he flys he says "and Beyond!!!!" then goes "Pppssshhheeewwwwww" as he flys away, he was equally excited to be buzz as wil was to be aang!

Our neighbors with the fresh doughnuts never disappoint! the smell lingers down the whole street! They make the doughnuts right in their garage and give out cider and hot chocolate with them! it is about halfway between our house and where we stop and turn around, just the perfect spot for a snack! we have the best street for trick-or-treating!

One Last pic of Aang and Appa! They have been wrestling and riding and killing the fire nation with appa since halloween! I keep waiting for him to fall apart so that i can wash him and put him on my bed.... he looks cozy!

Wil

I've just got to remember the stage wil is at right now, he drives me crazy but the love for this strong willed mean little boy i have is overwhelming.

He and I have been really butting heads lately, he never.... pretty much never listens the first time, i always have to threaten him with something, and then usually the threats get carried out, he spends alotta time in time-out. He gets frustrated sooo easily and yells alot!! I feel like i am constantly making him do things. Even when i'm trying to do something fun! I know we will get out of this funk eventually, because while he can be so mean he is also the best kid in the whole world! He is too smart for his own good, he is hilarious and constantly doing things to try and make us laugh. He is sooo into the airbender (as we all know too well) lol but its just him, He has an airbender staff that he carries around with him like a security blanket, and he usually sleeps with it. I will go in to tuck him in at night and have to pry it out of his hands and recover him up. He is crazy excited for halloween and his airbender costume, he talks about it every single day, a few times a day. We finally made a paper count down chain for halloween so he doesn't wake up everyday hoping that its halloween. We told him that we could shave his head so that he could have a point on his head like the airbender, so he talks about that constantly, and wants to shave his head today. Everyone he meets he tells that he is going to be the airbender.... apparently not everyone knows who the airbender is.... waitresses, random people at meijer.... lol

He is so completely different that his little brother, Coop doesn't freak out nearly as bad as Wil does, or did at his age. So i know its not all my fault, i just have to stick with it and be consistent, but man does he drive me crazy!!

We had some family pics taken by my friend Lara! she did an awesome job!!! theres a link to her website on the left side of my blog! there are more to come these are just a couple i pulled off of facebook! They turned out great considering my boys were less than cooperative! but oh well lol

We have made quite a few trips to the Orchard this season, this is Spicers orchard, and it is a real blast. the big box of corn is my favorite, but dirtier than sand but they played forever!

And went down the slides over and over and over.

I went to my mom's this weekend and she helped me sew Wil's halloween costume!!!
he is obviously going to be "The Last Airbender" since he now belives himself to be the last airbender.... lol, yes we will be phasing him out of this and not encouraging him anymore after halloween, no more airbender...... cuz for real, he seriously thinks he is the airbender... for real

And this pic i needed to post, my mom..... eating an eye ball, lol, she was trying to get Wil to try some and he would not..... it came in that tube full of liquid "candy" i tasted some and think i got diabetes.... from one taste..... ickoo

Melons, and Labor day

Sooo once again, my birthday came and went and i took absolutely no pictures!!! Except of the Lovely bouquet of daisies! (which are my favy) and I took one pic of my super hip haircut!! I love it, it makes me feel so cool :) So far 26 has been great, I feel great, in the best shape i have been in in forever, and everyone is healthy and happy!!!

I never know, when i have so many pictures, whether to put the descriptions on the top or on the bottom of the pictures..... I'm going to pick top.... SOoo this next picture is my boys and their super cool hats, We went school clothes shopping and couldn't pass them up, they matched their shirts :)

I have been on a big cooking kick, trying new recipes, Like the one below i saw on Rachael Ray and had to try it!! Its chabata bread, with a ricotta cheese/thyme mixture spread on top, sausage cooked with garlic and red pepper flakes, topped with broccoli rabe and all topped with shredded provolone...... it was really really good, a ton of food but looked really pretty, since then i have made a lot of different things, We sit down to dinner and Wil calls it "mommy's restaurant" and he usually eats what i make, My favorite was the lettuce wraps, tho no one else liked em...

The next few are from Howell's Melon festival (no not the melon's ur thinking)

They had lots of bounce houses, and no one there cuz it was kind of raining.

My Cooper has no fear. He is awesome, most of the time i forget that he is only 18 mo old lol. He forgets too, he is pretty sure that hes 3.

Nick had to climb up there with em and throw em down the slides lol, it was super wet, almost like a slip n slide, but nick made it out without any broken bones, or broken children!

The lamest little carousel but the kids didn't wanna get off, Coop looooved it. Kept sayin "neeiigghhhh" the whole way around

Wil got his face painted! He originally wanted a rainbow....... glad we could talk him outta that one lol

This thing scared the crap outta me. I must have watched one to many horror stories on TV of the ropes coming back and cutting fingers or faces off.... but Wil really wanted to catapult a melon, so they did it, i was hoping to get an action shot of the melon splatting the ground but no such luck, that's what they are watching tho, Wil had just pulled it and they are lookin at how far it went lol

I made Nick take a first day of school picture, he was not happy about taking the picture (as you can tell lol) nor did he want me to post it up here but too bad, I am proud of him, and i super love him, and wanna remember things like this! Wil was so mad the whole day he wanted to go to school with dad, hes pretty sure dad just colors and plays with toys and kids all day, cuz thats what school is .... right??

Over labor day weekend I took the kids down to spend a long weekend with my mom and dad. We did all sorts of fun things with Grandma O and Grandpa O! Like teeter totters!!

Oh my gosh i love this chunky kid!! ugh he melts my heart lol

I made them pose for lots of pictures, There was a cute garden place right next to the most awesome park in the world, I'm pretty sure Ive posted about this park before, its huge, we have nothing like that close to here.

My parents live right next to a big state park, It has a huge lake ( i guess its a dam, gets really full in the summer and empties in the winter) But there are trails, a nature center with little animals to look at and things to do, literally 3 minutes from my parents, we spent the morning on the lake, ate lunch on the boat, played at the beach, cleaned up then headed to the nature center!

and that has been the last few months, here's another empty vow to blog more, i really do like it! I just need to take more pics. Wil is starting a preschool class next week, just one day a week, and playgroup is going to be awesome this week too, so lots more pics to come!

So my hubby tells me today that his bestest friend Anthony, whom we havent seen since our wedding, reads my blog!! shout out to Anthony! congrats on the new baby! :) he also told me that Anthony wants to leave comments on here, so tutorial... at the bottom of every post there is a little word that says comment, if you click it you can leave one :D and I think you should have a blog or a facebook so WE can see pics of your little ones, and you guys too

In other news my bday is tomorrow! i'm a little excited, its my favorite day of the whole year, besides my kids birthdays. My mom dad and little sister will be here for the weekend and my cousins aubrey and davin and thier lil one are flying in tomorrow for a couple weeks, its gonna be a fuuuun weekend!!!!

Id add a picture of what we've been up to, but its been kinda boring, just alot of sittin in the sun and playin in the lake!! i love summer *sigh*

My lil Coop

This pic was taken last weekend, when we actually caught the ice cream truck!! While we are sitting on the beach you can hear the truck on the other side of the lake all the time, my kids have no idea what the music is coming from but I have amazing flash backs from when i was a kid! Hearing the truck and grabbing our shoes and running for blocks and blocks, through backyards, lol we had shortcuts all over the neighborhood to get to different peoples houses and just running towards the music.

so every time I hear it across the lake there is some instinct in me to run, run until I find the ice cream..... when kroger is closer, and prolly cheaper...... lol

anyways, we got these awesome ice cream things, with gumball eyes, and crazy colors that stained our teeth and tummys and fingers for a few days, and were so sugary that we had a hard time getting to bed that night, so fun

i looooove summer!!!!!! ugh

and now that it is august it just feels like summer is almost over and im so very sad! i dont want it to snow.... please no....... whhaaaa

But the point of this post is not to mourn the end of summer but to write some of my Cooper's milestones recently. He is blossoming, he talks a lot more now. He has a word for almost everything he needs. He loves his blanket "blankiee" and his bink which he calls "hockie" Just this week he learned to recognize some shapes (thank you baby Einstein)

sidebar: I am such a ridiculous fan of the whole baby Einstein and little Einstein corp. I completely owe them everything for my children's intelligence. Wil walks around humming classical music, loves to sing and "write music" talks about different composers, and about different places in the world, the pyramids, volcanoes, endless conversations, i could keep it on the TV all day long cuz it makes me feel like they are learning important things, which they are. Mickey and dora don't talk about the totem poles, or ancient hieroglyphics lol looooove them

Anyways back to Cooper. He has turned into a little man this month. He will be 18 months next week. His half bday is my real bday! well like 2 hours off. cuz my half bday is valentines day, and he was born just a couple hours shy of valentines day :)

Disclaimer: potty talk!

Yesterday Cooper went peeps on the little kid potty!!! it was a big deal!! he is really young, so im not pushing this at all..... at all!!! but he always tells me when he has to poop, or comes up to me and puts his head in my lap when he is pooping.... thanks for that btw... lol but last night Wil was sittin on the potty right before bed time and Coop came up to me, pointed to his belly and said "poop" so i opened up the little potty and has him sit on it, after about 15 seconds he would stand up and we would look in it together to see if there was anything in there, we would both make our "hhhmmmmm" face and say nope and shrug. "wanna try again??" head shake yes and he sat back down. this went in cycles for about 6 times. on the last time, as he was squatting in front of the potty with his face in the little potty, checking to see if there was indeed some peeps in there that time and he started to go on the floor!! lol i shrieked and it scared him into stopping, so i swooped him up and sat him on it told him to do that again and he finished!!!!

whoooohoooooo Wil cheered and danced, Cooper cheered and danced!!! Mommy cheered and danced!!! (and cleaned up the floor) daddy cheered from the other room... lol it was pretty exciting.

So now im convinced that my kids are the smartest kids in the whole world, they are great at everything and will continue on this trend of making me proud from now until forever!!!

I know i have alot of blogging to do, it always seems to get away from me during the summer months! they fly by! But I really wanted to write about this hillarious phase Wil is in right now. He is a riot, always so serious, i hope someday his sense of humor will come around. He loves to sing, loud, long and put on shows, of course I think its hillarious so i laugh, then Wil gets soooo mad. "stop laughing mom! its not funny!!" to which i reply "Im laughing because you make me so happy!" I posted a few of his songs on facebook, i will try to get them on here, but the blog is more for journaling for me. So then the next day he saw the movie "The Last Airbender" with nick, he loved it, every day since, for about 2 weeks or more now, he has been calling himself the last airbender and doinng some awesome spin kick flip moves and throwing magic missiles at everyone, he has been doing it so often now that little Coop is now throwin some magic missiles too. lol, to which of course i laugh, i can not help it lol, i laugh just thinking about it, then he tells me "Its not funny mom! im the last airbender! Im angry!"

I will say "hey wil, go pick up your toys"

he says "I'm not wil mom! im the last airbender"

"oh sorry, i forgot.... hey airbender, go pick up your toys!"

Just when i think that he has forgotten about it, i try to talk to him like a normal wil, and am quickly reminded that hes not wil lol, i just think its funny its lasted so long, usually he is on to the next thing alot quicker. So tuesday he got a package in the mail from my mom with a last airbender shirt in it!!! i have never seen him more excited lol. He wore it for the rest of the day, then to bed that night, then all day the next day, cuz he didnt want to change, i had to peel it off of him this morning to throw it in the wash cuz he was starting to smell.... lol, Last night he had me take pictures and video of his sweet airbender moves (he likes to trap me in ice blocks) Nick took the pictures and photoshopped the one above lol, nick spent all this time on it last night, we show it to him this morning, thinking he would be crazy excited about it and love it, but aparently it wasnt good enough, he was like ,yeah, i know, im the last airbender, then proceeds to tell nick that he needs a point (arrow) on his head like the airbender has, then walks away..... not quite enough dad lol, not quite enough

i wish i could keep him this age forever, and ever

Catch up

Last weekend we went to the Detroit Zoo with my friends Kelly and Gabby, and Gabby's 2 boys Isaak and Eli! It was a blast!! The boys loved it as much as I did. this pic is of the train ride right when we got there. We usually take the train to the back and work our way back to the front of the zoo to leave.

This is Wil, Isaak and Eli posin for a pic, it was impossible to get everyone smiling and looking at the same camera at the same time, there was always at least 2 if not 3 cameras pointing at em lol, but this is the best I got!

My boys lookin in at the Chimpanzees. They were kinda scary, they would haul up and bounce kick off the glass right in front of the kids. Freaked me out, Cooper wanted to see more!

A few days later the circus came to Howell! Grandma Annie, cousins Emma, Bella and Isaac all went with us! Its only in town for one day, and it was pretty small but we got front row seats, it was pretty cool for Wil. and for me. They had 2 elephants, 6 lions, big cool trained ones, camels, I have lots more pictures that are goin on facebook for now.

Wil enjoyed the treats more than the actual show tho, and the $10 lighting up gun he had to have..... i might be spoiling him.... alot, oh well.... Cooper might get a complex, he doesnt get near as many things.... Once Coop realizes that its not too fair the gravy train will stop for Wil too lol. one lighting up gun for $10 isnt as bad as 2... thats tooooo much

Cooper has officially started saying NO! and this is his NO face...
Its pretty serious

We were finger painting