Halloween - Best Game Ever!

Our little dinosaur...

We got no good pictures before trick-or-treating but after trick or treating, Cooper was all smiles.

The picture below was taken while he was snacking on some chocolate - no smile (he was chewing), but a great view of his costume.
Spines...

Such great fun...

After a great afternoon at our church fall festival, we had lots of fun trick-or-treating tonight. Even though it was again pouring rain tonight Cooper has decided that Halloween is the best game ever! It took him only one house to get the idea of the game... walk to the door, knock, hold out your bucket and you get lots of candy. He LOVED it. We had to take several candy breaks (ahem, after every house) along the way and he has had many more treats since we've been home. Needless to say, he's still going strong and not even close to winding down for bed yet. Parker also enjoyed the festivities dressed as Superman. He's such a tolerant dog.... Happy Halloween Everyone!

Pumpkin Patch 2009

It's Halloween and we finally made it to the pumpkin patch this year. How's that for the nick of time? October has been busy and wonderful with a beach trip, Chrysalis weekend, family coming to visit, trip to Homeland Creamery (a blog about that coming soon!), and just life. I blinked and October is almost gone without a trip to the pumpkin patch. Not to be deterred by the drizzle, we set out for the pumpkin patch this morning. The rain did not put a damper on Cooper's spirits as he set out to explore every last inch of the patch. He didn't want to leave a wagon unexplored, or a pumpkin unturned and kept us on our toes (as always) chasing his explorations through the patch. It was a fun morning nonetheless.



We came home and set out carving a happy face into our pumpkin. Cooper wasn't so sure about the pumpkin "guts." He didn't really want to have anything to do with scooping it out but was happy putting back into the pumpkin what we took out with the big metal spoon. He was also cute offering the pumpkin's mouth a bite of his chicken nugget after we finished carving. Pictures of our dinosaur and his smiling pumpkin coming tonight...

And just for a comparison...
Pumpkin Patch 2008

From Pumpkin Patch

And Pumpkin Patch 2009

From Pumpkin Patch 2009

My, how time flies!

Spider Treats

A Betty Crocker, I am not. But when I made these spider cookies and they actually turned out cute and yummy, I decided to share. They are super easy and such a fun Halloween treat too!

I got my inspiration from here but made lots of modifications. You may use the Betty Crocker Peanut Butter Cookie mix but I opted to make my own...

I first made some peanut butter cookies using my mom's homemade recipe:

1/2 cup butter or shortening (softened)

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar - packed

1 egg

1 1/4 cups self rising flour

Mix first 5 ingredients. Blend flour in slowly. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Shape dough into 1" balls and place 3" apart on a lightly greased baking sheet. Bake 10-12 min. until set but not hard. Makes approximately 2 dozen cookies.

Then:

1 bag miniature reeces cups

1 squeeze tube chocolate icing

1 small bag of M&M's

Licorice pull and peel twizzlers (optional- I did not use)

After the cookies came out of the oven, I immediately placed a miniature reeces cup upside down in the center of each cookie. I let them cool for a while until the reeces cup hardened. After cooling, I attached m&m's as eyes to the front of each reeces cup with chocolate squeeze tube icing (and drew a little chocolate dot as an eyeball on the front of each m&m with the icing). The recipe actually calls for black twizzler pull and peels as legs but I accidently got regular twizzlers, so I just drew legs on with the same chocolate tube icing. After they finish cooling, Voila - Simple Spider Cookies! Giese taste tester approved! :)

Bedtime Prayers

Sean: Thank you for Mommy
Cooper: Mommy
Sean: Thank you for Daddy
Cooper: Jesus!
Sean: Close enough

And the 18th Month Brings...

New Stats from the checkup this morning:
Head Circumference: 18 inches (6th percentile)
Height: 32 1/2 inches (57th percentile)
Weight: 21 lbs. 1.6 oz (less than 3rd percentile)

Cooper's doing great but needs to bulk up a little bit. It goes without saying that he is built like Sean but even though he eats like a champ, we were advised to try to feed him more fatty foods (put butter or cheese on his veggies, more peanut butter, etc.)to try to help him bulk up. We will go back in 3 months to have a weight check.

He is meeting all of his milestones and is right on target. He is definitely saying between 10-20 words which is the milestone for his age(we were told to expect a vocabulary explosion in the next few months - can't wait!)He repeats or tries to repeat what we are saying now, often, and can understand a ton more than he can say. He takes simple directions well (let's go put your shoes on, sit down please, etc.) What he is saying now:
Mommy
Daddy
Parker (Ca-Ca)
Papaw
Addison (Addie)
No
How are you (howyou - one word)
Hey
Bye
Ball
Beep
Shoes
Socks (cocks)
Uh-Oh
Auntie E (Ah-E)
Ready (Eh-E)
Tree (Tee)
Three (also Tee - we just recognize the context in which he is using it)
More
All Done

Cooper can make animal noises of an elephant, snake, fish, dog, cow, lion and duck. He can correctly point to his eyes, nose, ears, mouth, hair, belly button, and toes - when he is in a cooperative mood :). He can also eat with a spoon/fork. Hooray for milestones!

Lewis Beach Trip 2009

First Family Beach Trip = Success

Butterfly Farm

A few weeks ago, we visited the All-A-Flutter butterfly farm with the Trips for Tots group at church. One of the highlights was actually holding the butterflies. The farm staff gave each of us a sugar water soaked piece of cotton and let us go into the greenhouse area to visit with the butterflies. I think everyone there got to hold a butterfly that wanted to and it was so neat. Cooper wasn't that interested in the butterflies - he was more into the trees, rocks, and running around in general but he had fun anyway.

Did you know that a boy Monarch has two black spots on the bottom of its wings? Apparently, this one is a girl that I am holding.

The Praying Mantis is an enemy of butterflies. Cooper is demonstrating with the Praying Mantis hat.

Again, could care less about the butterflies - more interested in the rocks and trees.

Taking a look at the butterfly life cycle demonstration toys - Does this child's mother not know he's supposed to be listening to the presentation?? Ahem.

The Newest Giese

I can't believe that it's been a month already and I haven't posted about this! On Sept. 12, the Giese family welcomed our newest addition - Rachel. Technically, she's been a part of the family for about six years now (not an exaggeration!) since she and Aaron have been dating but it became official a month ago when they got married. It was a beautiful fall day in Waynesville. The bride looked gorgeous, the groom was handsome, and it was a joyful celebration of the beginning of their married life together. Congratulations Aaron and Rachel!

FYI: I hope to post more photos later... I stole these off of Amy Turner's facebook! I didn't take a single photo of the wedding day (oops!) but my mother-in-law did and has CD's for me so I plan on posting more later!