Calling all Digital Scrappers

My digital scrapbook gal who posts all these great freebie links on her site has called it QUITS! If you have a good site that you use would you please send it my way, thanks!

Merry Christmas

Dear Family & Friends,
Randy is now a Senior Resident in Orthopaedic Surgery at U of Iowa – yea! He works hard, loves his job, and is looking into sports fellowships when we finish in 2011.
Cooper is 2 ½ years and such a character. He has pronounced himself “Super Cooper” with superhero powers, begs for us to tell him stories of his adventures every chance he gets, LOVES dinosaurs (especially Rudy from Ice Age), and makes his baby sister laugh by stacking pillows around her (it’s her tent). He’s long since tackled any climbing challenge in the house.
Sweet Caroline is 8 months and started crawling last month. She is a strong little girl and STRONG willed as well, I think it runs in the family.
I’m lucky enough to stay home with our children and teach aerobics a few days a week to keep my sanity. We have new adventures each day. It is amazing to watch them grow.
Our family hopes this finds you happy and healthy.
Love, Randy, Amy, Cooper & Caroline

Football!

In November we were able to drive just a few hours (ok, 5.5) to see Randy and my college alma mater play FOOTBALL! Southern Utah, let's GO!! (That's the cheerleader coming out of me.) We drove to Vermillion, South Dakota to watch the game, to support our Thunderbirds, and feel a little closer to home. The team played in a Dome so we didn't have to worry about the weather - yea!

Our friend, Zesty, hooked us up with tickets and some good seats. Here are the kids and Randy decked out in SUU gear:

The whole family before the game:

And if you ask Cooper what his favorite part of the trip was... he will tell you the SWIMMING POOL at the hotel and getting ICE with his Daddy. That's right, he's also skipping BAREFOOT down the hotel hallway. It was all I could do to BITE MY LIP but you can't say much when Daddy says it's "ok".

Laugh Attack

I'm glad Caroline is getting big enough to "play" with Cooper. And by play I mean Cooper does silly things and she laughs. It's hillarious what lengths he will go just to hear her squeals of joy. Not much was needed below, just a little water. I've watched this video SEVERAL times when I need to smile - or just to remember that my kids really ARE sweet. Enjoy! (Warning: baby bums may be shown)

Happy Halloween!

I love that Halloween was on a Saturday this year because that meant we didn't have to wait for Randy to get home from work to begin our fun! Here he is with our 2 scary dragons:

Cooper was very proud of the pumpkin he and Daddy carved that day. But once we put it on the porch in the dark it was too scary to hug.

How could you not LOVE your little boy to pieces when he does THIS while trick-or-treating and keep in mind that my 2-year-old LOVES candy and NOT sharing:
He runs to the door and drags mommy with him.
(Neighbor opens the door.)
Cooper: Trick or Treat!
Neighbor: What a cute Dragon! Pick any treat you like.
Cooper: Thank you (picks a treat), now I need one for my mommy.
Neighbor: Oh, ok. (Cooper picks another treat)
Cooper: Here you go, mommy! (Hands mommy the chocolate - he knows me well.)
Seriously? How cute it that! I told him mommy didn't need any more treats but thank you for thinking of me.

October

My good friend Kara is going to have a BABY! So Darci, Katie, Shawn and I got together and decided to throw a shower for her and invited all the women of the ortho dept. I think we had a pretty good turn-out and eveyone had a nice time. Here we are with Kara holding Kate and Hannah in the middle - we're just getting her primed for what is to come!

I had to include this funny pic of Caroline with my friend MaryEdith's little boy, Pierce. A picture says a thousand words, right? These two were smiling at each other while they scooted around, they're only a week or two apart. We went out to Amana and took some cute pictures before it was TOO cold. This was the ONLY one I took where Cooper was actually looking at the camera. What a turkey!

CJ is sitting up like a big girl in her high chair. I love this portable one that you can just strap on a seat and she can sit at the table with the rest of us.

And here I am with my good friend, Andrea who came out to Iowa. I love her! When I told Randy she was coming to visit he was puzzled why she would want to fly to the midwest on her vacation... to see ME of course! We braved the U of Iowa tailgating with 2 kids just to give her a taste of the crazy football fans we live amongst.

Andrea -THANK YOU for coming to visit me - I had a great time :)

Fall Adventures

I need to catch up on an important event... Randy turned 32 in September! He's been telling people all year that he was already 32 until I reminded him of his correct age. Woops! Happy LATE, LATE birthday to you, honey. You will always be older than me :)

Before the weather turned cold outside we were able to get a few rides in our bike trailer with BOTH kids. Caroline was big enough to ride in here when we came back from Utah. I can't wait to pull it out in the spring! They were so cute once Cooper stopped poking CJ and they both drifted off to sleep.

Cooper is a great climber these days... I wonder where he gets it from?? I know, you think it would be Randy but he's actually afraid of heights! This is the highest I've seen Randy climb since I tricked him into riding the Free Fall at Knott's Berry Farm (another story).

And with the help of our esteemed "Grandpa" Frank next door, I was able to take the kids on the Hawkeye Express Train to the stadium. It was CRAZY getting to the stadium but then we rode back before the game started and had the train all to ourselves.

Cooper was THRILLED to ride in a REAL train.

We hope you are all enjoying the fall weather wherever you live.