Happy Birthday Cooper!

Well, now that Coop is the big 13 months old (yesterday!), it's probably time that I put some pictures up from his birthday!  Warning: this is about to be picture overload!  His birthday really was a perfect day and we really enjoyed celebrating our BIG ONE YEAR OLD! We started the morning off with a few presents from Lolly, Pop, Aunt Meg, Mommy and Daddy.

He was obsessed with this little book with the bug eyes and toted it around all morning!

Serious pose in his big boy chair with his bug book.  He loves this chair and will often go and just sit in it to drink his milk.  It's like he knows that his chair is his special place to unwind and relax or something!

 A little birthday donut with sprinkles!

But he probably would have preferred a banana!  Actually, the poor guy had gotten sick at some point during the night from two teeth that popped up the day after his birthday.  Sweet baby didn't feel like eating much on his birthday.  SO sad!

After his morning nap, we met Pops, Aunt Kelly, Ellie, and Blake for lunch and the zoo!  Grandpa Mark and Aunt Meg joined us!

Then home for another big nap while we got everything all set up for the party!

Since Cooper's birthday is 2 days before Halloween, we thought a Kid's Costume Party would be a fun way to celebrate!  All the kids were SOOO cute in their costumes!  

I (not so) secretly hope that Cooper is one of those kids that is obsessed with wearing costumes everywhere we go.  Cowboy hats, capes, Buzz Lightyear outfits, whatever!  Cooper was the best cowboy I've ever seen!  Here he is just holding down his ball pit fort!  He stayed in the pit for literally the entire party- only came out to eat some Cheerios and chicken nuggets!

No surprise that Cooper wasn't into his orange pumpkin cake (it was vanilla with vanilla icing that was dyed orange).  Also, I just have to say that the cake was the only part of his birthday that I was disappointed in.  It was supposed to be shaped like a pumpkin, but it didn't really come out- and then I forgot to get a "stem" for it, so we just shoved a 3 Musketeers from the gas station in it.  Sidenote: the cake at our wedding was the only thing that I didn't like.  Guess I have high cake expectations.  Moving on...

 I also teared up when we sang "Happy Birthday" to him.  As it turned out, we were actually singing at the exact time he was born.  6:03 pm.  Can't believe that he is ONE WHOLE YEAR!  It's flown by!

After all of our friends left, we spent some time opening presents before bed time.

He loved this little ride-on toy!  The picture is blurry, but I love his little face!  This is a boy who is made for adventure!

Since I didn't get any great photos of just him in his costume, naturally I had to set up a photo shoot in the backyard the following day.  So here he is at one year and one day old:

 Sweet Sheriff Coopy will save you!

This was when he decided that he had an idea for the photo shoot, so he tried to hoist the pumpkin in the chair so that he could pose with it.  Whatever!

"See Mom, this is cute, right?"

Can you tell that the poor guy was teething?  Just eating his pumpkin...

 And his chair...

 And his badge.

Then a few pics in his wagon from Grandpa Mark

 I love this picture.  He's holding that pumpkin so proudly, like he grew it or something!

"I grew this here pumpkin!"

 Then he saw Daddy come outside!

 And he made his scrunchy owl face

 And of course the sweet babe knew that Daddy was going to take him for a ride

 Wheeee!!!

So that's it!  It truly was a perfect day and a fun celebration of our little joy, Cooper!  I am SO excited for this upcoming year with Coops.  Now that he is more mobile & independent, I see his little personality coming out and he really is a hoot!  This is going to be a great year with our BIG boy!