The Fisherman

There was a time when we were concerned by the fact that in all the family pictures Fisher drew Cooper was about this big and he was about this big. Now, Cooper seems to have disappeared from the family portrait masterpieces completely. Hmmm.....

You would think he'd have learned his lesson with the tic-tac.

Although Fisher loves Cooper most of the time, he has become a little annoyed with Cooper trying to grab his toys. (Never mind the fact that he starts it by shoving the toys in Cooper's face, taunting him.) Last night Fisher had one of his "episodes" and yelled:

F: "Mommy! I want Cooper to go back in your tummy now!"

M: "Cooper is too big now to fit in my tummy."

F: "Well, then, I am going to yell at him very badly!"

F: " Look Mommy!..."

F: "I'm Rudolph."

At Fisher's four year check up his stats were as follows:
Weight: 38.6 lbs (5oth%)
Height: 40 1/2 inches (45th%)
His weight had dropped about a lb from the last visit about a month before, but he did have a massive BM only minutes before being weighed :)

This year I was not in the mood to make sugar cookies. It might be due to the fact I had made them recently for the Halloween party. Fisher was dying to make them and so for his birthday I promised him we would. We did all the wet ingredients on the 23rd, finished the dough and baked them on the 24th and then they just sat, un-frosted, until a few days after Christmas. Finally on the 27th I made Fisher some frosting and let him frost a few for him to eat.

And eat he did.
There is nothing like a good, stale sugar cookie.

"The face."
My kid is weird and most of the time I love it.

He has been much better in the behavior department over the last 3-4 days. Todd and I were talking last night about how much fun he can be when he is not acting like a monster. Go figure. :)

He loves his transformer gloves and hat.

Fisher is always tired which is the cause of a lot of his problems. Lately he has taken a liking to napping on the floor. It still is hard getting him to go to bed before 11pm when he has napped, but sometimes it is so worth it to have a happy kid. On the other hand, sometimes it is nice to have a tired, grumpy little boy all day that then goes to bed by 7:00. Tough call.

He is starting to care when we are upset with him. You can see that he is trying to control some of his impulsive behavior.

He still has some of his perfection issues such as when he draws and it does not turn out how he envisions or if he is building something and it breaks. This often turns into a tantrum of frustration. It is the same with racing at anything. If Fisher is not first he freaks out. We have started telling him (frequently) that we love him even if he does not win and if he is not perfect.

He still jumps a lot.

I think my boys were born with springs in their legs. Tonight he jumped for 8 minutes straight. That may not sound like that long but considering how short his attention span is, it is a long time. He told me he was "getting some of my (his) energy out."

Six months...only a couple of weeks late

This kid is just about the happiest, most perfect baby we could ask for.

But despite how angelic he looks when sleeping....he is a spaz.

Cooper is much more energetic as a baby than I recall Fisher being. Does this scare me?
YES.

He has a little curly Q cowlick on the front of his head. His hair is starting to grow in more and has a similar strawberry tinge to it just like his brother.

Cooper is unstoppable when it comes to him grabbing objects that he desires. He is always moving and always trying to grab something.

One of his favorite things are my books.

He has been mobile in the form of rolling his way around to wherever he wants to go. Yesterday he was actually pulling himself with his arms a little.

He will get up on all fours but does not attempt to crawl.

He starting to jabber more "Da, Ba & Ma" with the occasional velociraptor screech.

After almost 2 months of being sick and coughing alllll through the night, he is finally healthy. I understand that by mentioning this on the blog I have now jinxed myself.

He drools more than a rabid dog and has an affinity for blowing massive amounts of bubbles.

Todd has this magic touch of being able to put Cooper to sleep whenever he is fussing.

He started sitting up, very unstably, right before Thanksgiving at about 5 months but now can sit up on his own with no problem. We do have to stay close for those occasions when he decides to shoot back.

There was a random, but funny, incident a few week ago when he developed some strange love attachment to my friend Julie's shoe. He laid down on it and cuddled for a few minutes until she had to leave.

Everything goes into Cooper's mouth with the exception of bottles and rice cereal. We had a late start on the cereal since he had been sick for so long. Thus far he only sees the spoon and bottle as torture devices meant to make his life miserable.

We'll keep trying on the food.

He loves balloons as much as Fisher and would become very upset when they were out of his reach.

He also loves to wiggle, jump, stand (with our help, of course), smile at people, and play with his brother & brother's toys.

He started out as a bigger baby but when we took him in for his six month check up they were surprised to see that he was down in weight from his four month visit. The doctors finally realized that he must be sick (which we had been telling them about the coughing, diarrhea and vomiting for over a month. They did not take us serious until the weight drop and finally tested for RSV (neg) and gave him breathing treatments & antibiotic.)

Six month stats:

Height: 25 1/2 inches (20th%)

Weight: 15 lbs (10th%)

When we went in a week later for a follow up appointment on his health (which was much improved) his weight was up to 16 lbs.

Christmas Eve & Day 2009

This year was really fun since Fisher completely "got" Christmas. He knew why we celebrate Christmas, understood the concept of Santa (which was a fantastic bribery tool for us!), loved the decorations and was excited about everything that had to do with Christmas.

We had borrowed Wii from a friend which made for a fun time.
(Thanks Mike & Megan!)

Christmas Eve we sang carols, complete with a lot of bell shakin' going on.
Just envision SNL's skit with Will Ferrell and the cow bell...

We read the nativity story from the Bible.

And we let Fisher open one present from both sets of Grandparents. As you can see, Fisher turned it into a production of The Lion King. The first gift of Christmas was a pair of matching pj's from G & G Lund.

There was a level of excitement that was borderline psychotic. :)

G&G Church gave Fisher the Monkeys in a Barrel game, which were appropriate with the monkey pajamas.

Grandpa Church had an incoming call from Santa to Fisher. Cooper slept through all the of the Christmas Eve festivities but we had a good time anyway.

Christmas morning started off with the normal stocking rituals. Fisher was kind enough to take care of Cooper's as well since, once again, he was sleeping through all the fun. So much for his first Christmas :)

Fisher wore the Santa hat and a pair of inside out and backwards monkey pj's. He passed out a lot of the presents until he became more interested in the toys that were inside the presents.

There were a lot of moments such as this. Lots of wrapping paper being torn. Fisher helped Cooper open his presents later after he woke from his nap.

One of the few pictures I have of them in their matching pajamas.

Fisher is really into this weird face right now. I have at least ten like this on my camera at the moment.

Both of the boys received a new hat & gloves.

Cooper modeling his new hat after he decided to wake up and join the party.

Christmas morning was spent doing a lot of this.

And a lot of this...Transformers, a Lightening McQueen remote control car and candy canes...life doesn't get much better than that for a four year old Fisher.

We thought we were staying on top of putting the paper in a garbage bag but we missed a few along the line.

We had so much food Christmas Eve and then grazed so much Christmas morning/afternoon that we actually decided to just bag the ham & turkey dinner on Christmas. This made for an even more relaxing and enjoyable day than we were already having.

Fisher spent a lot of time eating all the treats I had set out from friends who had delivered Christmas goodies.

G & G Church spoiled us with a Wii this year. Then between a gift card from G & G Lund and my gift to Todd were able to stock up on some games. It was a fun way to spend time with the family.

After almost two straight months of being sick, both boys started feeling better the day before Christmas. It lasted for about four days and then allergies kicked in for Fisher. Then yesterday both boys had four shots which made Cooper grumpy and Fisher has had some sort of reaction with red & swelling on one arm that is really bothering him.

And yes...I was present this Christmas. I tend to be the one taking all the pictures and am seldom on the other end. We had a great Christmas with Todd's family and can't believe that Christmas has come and gone already. Today I have spent the day making a mess by trying to take all the decorations down so we can get back to normal every day life. Todd has a few more days off and then it is back into the daily grind. But it is a good grind. :)

Thanks to Todd's fam for spending Christmas with us. We had a good time.

Grandma & Grandpa pictures

Here are a few of the pictures I was able to take with G & G Church and the boys. Fisher was hard to get into pictures since he was still so excited over playing with his birthday and then his Christmas presents. The last thing he wanted to be doing was posing for pictures.

Grandma & Cooper on Christmas Eve.

Fisher taking a ride on Grandpa.

Uncle Jedd having some cuddle time with Cooper.

The morning after Christmas.

Cooper and Grandpa while we were playing a game of "Would You Rather..."