Miles

It seems that Cooper consumes most of my blogging, so just a little about Miles...

Miles vocabulary has really expanded! He is saying many other sounds other than "B" now! One of his new favorites phrases is "I do!" Sometimes it is used in the right context:

Me: Cooper - do you want a cookie?
Miles: I DO!!

And sometimes it isn't:

Me: Cooper - it's time to take a bath.
Miles: Runs into the bathroom. I DO!!!

When Miles sees something that impresses him, he says, "MOMMEEE!!" and looks for me. He wants to make eye contact to make sure that I understand the coolness of the thing he is experiencing. The other night I was reading a book to both Cooper and Miles in bed. Miles was laying on me, and as he experienced the coolness of the book, he had to strain and twist to try to see my eyes. It's a good thing the little guy is flexible. :)

Quotes of the Day

It's 9:33, and Cooper has already said some great things today.

First, he walked into our room this morning after he woke up, studied me for a minute and then said, "Mom - did you have another baby?" Perhaps I should change my shirt??

Then, we were playing with tractors and "fishing" and farm. Cooper came and cuddled up on my lap and said, "Mom - Aunt Hanna is a pretty, pretty girl. I just love Aunt Hanna!"

Great Wolf Lodge

For Christmas this year, Santa brought our family a one-night stay at the Great Wolf Lodge in Kansas City. We added this night stay to the end of our trip to Topeka. When Cooper understood that the Great Wolf Lodge had a swimming pool, he announced, "Mom - I'm not going to go swimming there. We don't swim in the winter." We heard that several times before we got there.

Once we were there, we got our swimming suits on and headed to the waterpark. Cooper was extremely hesitant, and Miles was ready to go. There was a kiddie pool area that had water that felt like bath water. It had three small slides, and Miles went down the slides over and over and over. He didn't stop smiling as he slid. Cooper tried the slides twice. Try number two involved me pretty much pushing him down the slide. Try number three resulted in a mini-trantrum and no slide. Cooper was finished with that.

That night, we didn't get as much sleep as we needed, and Cooper pulled off his waterpark pass bracelet, declaring that he would not go back. :) We went back for a few minutes (after I wrestled the swimming suites on) the next morning, and it turns out he loves sitting in the hot tub. Interesting. :)

A Holtwick Family Christmas

We had Christmas with my family over New Years Weekend. We forgot our camera, so there is not much to show you. I can tell you it was great fun! We are so blessed with family who loves us and expresses their love through gifts...oh so many gifts! Miles spent several minutes sitting with Great Grandpa Holtwick reading books - so sweet! Overall, it was a special family time to celebrate the birth of Christ!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! Can you believe another Christmas has come and 2010 is just around the corner?!?! Christmas always seems like a milestone for our family as everything begins to slow down in late December. However, for most holiday seasons in the past, 'slow down' means running to this family and that and being out of our home for what seems like most of December. This year was different in that we're not traveling until the 31st of December, and even then, it will only be for a few days. We always enjoy spending time with family, but it's great to be home with the boys.

For Christmas this year, Santa gave Nate and I a little time to ourselves this morning, as both boys slept until past 7:00AM (although, somehow I still managed to get up at 5:30...)! Cooper has not slept until past 7:00 for many, many months. This was destined to be a very Merry Christmas indeed!!

This year we continued with Christmas 'light'! We've both been burdened to keep the gift quantity on the low side so there wasn't too much under the Bethell tree this morning! In fact, most of those gifts in the picture are for other family members (mostly Haraders, this year!) and the big one was for me. :)



Santa brought our family stockings, and then Nate hid them. This was a Bethell family tradition with Tom, Nate's dad, always doing the hiding (still does it to this day!), and it is a really fun tradition Nate is carrying on in our family. Cooper found his stocking with a little help. :)



After we opened stockings, we sang Happy Birthday to Jesus and blew out the candles on His birthday cake (just so happened to be a delicious Heath-bar / pecan coffee cake!). Cooper is really starting to ask questions about Santa and Jesus, so I think he was pretty confused that Jesus wasn't there to eat his cake. He said, "Mom - I think we should take a piece of cake to heaven for Jesus." Other Jesus questions - 'How far away is Jesus?' 'Why doesn't Jesus blow out his candles?' 'Only two candles? I thought Jesus was old?'




Cooper's gift from us this year was a new bike. He has asked for a bike from Rose's for a long time, and now he has it. :) And if you didn't notice, yes, it's yellow and green - John Deere green baby!




Miles gift from us was a Cars bouncy ball.



However, when the dust settled, both boys wanted to be inside the box of my gift. :)


Cooper's very favorite gift today was the new Cars underwear that Santa brought him in his stocking. We had to wash them right away so he could wear a pair.

Miles was a little jealous of his bro's new undies, so he decided to wear a pair of Coop's old undies over his pants.

What a day! We are thankful we understand the reason we celebrate this day! Happy Birthday, Jesus!

Bethell Family Christmas

The Bethells gathered at our house last weekend for A Bethell Family Christmas! Originally we were going to head to Branson on Saturday to spend the day at Silver Dollar City, but Saturday's high was somewhere around 17 degrees, so we decided to hunker down and enjoy some quality time at home.

We exchanged gifts on Friday night, and the best gift of all was the stuffing inside of one of the gifts. :)


We spent some quality time together over a puzzle:


Here is our very full table: (Miles is there, too, I promise. His high chair is off to the side of the table...)

Bethell Family Picture:

Sick

Cooper and Miles were both sick this week. Coop had a fever Monday through Wednesday, and Miles had it Wednesday and Thursday. Having sick kids is not easy - by Thursday I had reached my threshold in several areas. However, sick kids are most certainly love snuggles! Miles fell asleep on the couch a few times, and Cooper said, "Mom, I think it's time for my nap now," all three days of his fever. (Impressive for a kid who is nearing the end of the nap era!)

Getting dressed...

Cooper decided he wanted to wear all of his clean underwear on one day. The result:

Santa!

Cooper very willingly sat on Santa's lap this year! He had a nice conversation with him, although I missed most of it trying to convince Miles that Santa was a very nice guy and he should sit on his lap. :) This was the 3 seconds that Santa could hold on to Miles...

Meet Slash... (Cooper's stage name of course)

Air-guitar, underwear and 'life is a highway'. He's still working on the words to the verse, but is quite confident in his delivery of the chorus.