ONE YEAR OLD!

Cooper turned one year old this past Saturday!  Even though it's been over a week, it still seems so surreal that we have a one year old.  Where has the past year gone?  Everyone always says that the older you get, the faster time goes by.  I completely believe that, and I also believe that once you have kids, time flies even faster.  This has been the BEST year of our lives, and I don't know what we ever did without Cooper.

At 12 months, Cooper is more active than ever.  If he's awake, he's going full force!  That would explain the million bumps and bruises this kid has had in the past few weeks.

Cooper's first busted lip!  He was dancing to Mickey Mouse at JuJu and Pops' and fell and bumped his lip on the coffee table.

This has been the PERFECT past few months for Cooper.  Who would have thought that February and March would bring such perfect, warm weather.  Cooper has always loved to be outside, and the warm weather we've been having has just proved how much he still likes it.  When we get home every afternoon, Cooper runs from the front door to Bailey's crate.  He knows how to get her out of her crate, but he can't quiet get the latch undone yet.  It's so cute to watch him because he runs as fast as he can and screams her name (well actually it sounds more like BAY, but he really is meaning to say Bailey). When we get Bailey out, I've been taking him outside to run around the yard.  He loves every minute of it!

He's also been loving the outdoor time he's been getting in his car.  He loves to jabber and scream while he's riding, and he likes to wave bye bye at the cars that pass.

Cooper is officially on 100% whole milk.  I started mixing formula and milk about a week after he turned 11 months.  About a week before he turned 12 months, I started just doing a bottle in the morning and a bottle at night and sippy cups of milk throughout the day.  He did great with all of this.  Right now, he takes milk, juice, or water from a sippy cup all day, and then he still takes a bottle of milk at night right before bed.  I know we need to get rid of this nighttime bottle, but he's in such a routine, I hate to mess it up.  As for eating, Cooper is still a great eater.  He went through a little spell a couple of weeks ago when he had a few teeth popping through at once where he didn't want to eat much at all.  Well, once those teeth popped through, he started eating again and hasn't stopped.  He has 2 teeth on the bottom, 2 that are definitely through on the top, and 2 more on the top that have just barely poked through.  I think there's another 1 or 2 trying to come through on the bottom too.  At 12 months, his favorite foods are ANY kid of pasta, peanut butter sandwiches, bananas, Teddy Grahams, Goldfish, oatmeal, peas, pizza, grilled cheese, macaroni and cheese....

He is still wearing a size 4 diaper.  I feel like we might have to move up a size in the next couple of weeks because we've gotten close to have a few blow-outs.  :)  He's wearing all 12-18 month or just 18 month clothes.  The 18 month pants are still a little too long and a little big in the waist, but most of the 12 month pants are too short for him.

Of course I took several 12 month pictures to add to the monthly collection. This is the first month that I took the pictures on the day before his monthly birthday.  I knew his actual birthday would be very busy (I took my Comps test that morning for my Masters), and I wanted to make sure I had time to get some good ones to print for his party.  It took about 100+ tries, but I think I did get some good shots.