1st day of 1st grade!

 Cooper gets to walk to school this year!

 Mrs. Thompkins and Cooper

Kindergarten Graduation! Class of 2022!!

Logan and I went up to Cooper's school to attend his end of the year class party. Then LJ got a treat and was able to go play at recess with Cooper and his classmates.

Cooper and his classmate Serena

Logan showing off his awesome soccer skills.
*** See video below for more awesomenss***

Cooper playing with his brother.

After recess Cooper, Logan and I met James in the Kindergarten room for the graduation portion of the day. I can't believe I got teary watching my little boy grow up. Please take a moment and watch the Pomp & Circumstance of it all.

The Graduating Class of 2022.

Cooper and his teacher Ms. Shaw and Ms. Withers, and fellow classmate.

After school we went out for a special dinner at Red Robin, and icecream at McDonalds. What a great day!

Celebrating at Red Robin with Grampa Dave and Grama Pam!

Cooper recieves Award Writing/Language Arts

I went to Cooper's school today for an award assembly. Cooper recieved and award for Academic Excellence in Writing/Language Arts.

Notice any teeth missing???

6 YEARS OLD!!!

This year Cooper is really into Dinosaurs. You can't really find the perfect Dino cake at the store. So I just had them put green grass on cupcakes and I found my own Dino's to top them off. These cupcakes were brought to his class at school. As you can tell, they were very much appreciated and devoured.

Logan loved being in Cooper's class to celebrate. He didn't want to leave.

Later we met up with a few cousins and friends for dinner at McDonald's and a chance to play.

I thought that a Tuesday night at McD's should be relatively quiet. I was wrong. It was McTeacher night and I think the entire Federal Way school district was attending. It didn't matter though, the kids enjoyed themselves and that's what mattered.

After Dinner Cooper ripped through his presents...what a happy boy!

And oh so patiently waited for his Dino Cake!

When we got home Grama Pam delivered his big present!

Happy 6th Birthday to my sweet boy!! I love you!

Cooper's 1st day of kindergarten

My big boy on his first day of Kindergarten.
(Sorta, explaination below)

And of course little brother had to get in a picture too.

Okay, so here is where the drama begins. Last week, Sept.4 (Thursday) I hadn't heard anything from the school except from the transportation dept. telling us that Cooper would be picked up on the 9th at 8:20 am. No probs. Then, Tuesday at the open house Ms. Shaw told us that the kindergartners would not have school until the 10th. So, thinking that because he was in a different class, she said to send Cooper on the 9th if that is what the bus driver told us. All these pictures were taken on the 9th. This is my boy, looking for the bus anxiously, and starting to get worried. We waited for 30 minutes, the bus never came. And so, I called transportation, and they told me that he wasn't being picked up today. Why would they tell me one thing and do something completely different. I probably should have figured it out and waited an extra day, but I didn't want the bus to come and him not be there. Hmm. Lesson learned. We went into the apartment, and we both cried. Cooper because of disappointment, and me because it broke my heart to see it. We changed his school clothes and went on with our day as best as possible.

Dressed in the same clean outfit, we tried again today. His REAL first day! As the pick-up time came and went my heart sank and Cooper's confidence in the bus actually coming this time was sinking. You can tell on his face. I just kept praying, literally, that it would come so I wouldn't have to see my boy sad again.

Alas it arrived! (only 15 mins. late)
Cooper's face was gleaming with the excitement of yesterday! And I was silently saying a quick prayer of gratitude as
I gave him a hug and kiss goodbye.

While getting on the bus, he turned around and said to me,
"One more picture, mom."

As I watched the bus drive away, a few tears started to well up. Immediately extinguish by the need to console Logan, who was crying hysterically, (with real tears) saying,
" I want to ride the bus too!"
" I want to go with Cooper!"

Does the drama ever end?

Cooper's School Open House

School is set to begin in a couple of days. I'm still in denial that my baby is going to be in Kindergarten. Tonight we went to the school for an open house. He's in a specialized learning class (1 teacher and 2 para-educators) that right now only has 7 kids in it. He will be integrated as much as possible into the mainstream Kindergarten program.

We were able to see where his desk was and meet his new teacher. We were surprised to learn that he would be having a different teacher than the one we met back in June. His teacher's name is Ms. Shaw.
Cooper was a little shy at first, but it happened that we were the only ones to visit the classroom, so he warmed up a little bit to her. It was really nice to be able to talk to her about all our concerns and ask questions.

It seemed he really enjoyed exploring the room. As we were walking around the room I noticed the job chart and asked Cooper to find his name. He pointed right to it! He was really interested in the seasons chart. When asked about what his favorite season was he pointed to winter and said,
"I want it to snow!"

We are so excited for our big boy.

Cooper is Potty Trained!!! Yeh!

Cooper has officially been using the toilet for a month now...Oh joyous day!

1 down, 1 to go!

Cooper meets new Teacher

Today we went up to Chinook to meet Cooper's Kindergarten teacher, Ms. Coker. (Not sure if I spelled it right) Cooper had a chance to look around the room and sorta get an idea of what to expect next year. We had a quick hello and had a few questions answered before we had to go. I took the oppertunity to get a picture of Cooper and Ms. Coker together, as I'm sure I won't be able to get one on the 1st day of school.

Pre-K Graduation

After our visit to meet Cooper's new Teacher, going to the doctor and running a few pre-camping errands, we went to Game Farm Park for a picnic and Cooper's last ECE field trip.
After our lunch we had a graduation ceremony.Class of 2023
(did I do the math right?)After a quick ceremony, we loaded up the kiddos and left for Sun lakes.

Happy 5th Birthday Cooper!

Cooper celebrated his birthday in many ways this year.The first was on the 24th with The Twiddy Family...We BBQ'd and Jehana made him a McQueen cake, which he thought was way cool! He got some really cool gifs from his aunts and uncles and of course Grama Nina spoiled him too! Thank you everyone!

On his Birthday, we celebrated with my family. Of course that was fun too! Especially since it landed on Memorial Day this year. We went to the park and played baseball, had a BBQ, and a water balloon fight. See Memorial Day post for pics.

On the day after his birthday we brought cupcakes to his class and sang to him there!

Kindergarten Round-up

I went to Kindergarten roundup tonight....... I can't believe my baby is going to be a Kindergartener next year, AND he's going to the same elementary I went to growing up. The school seemed so much smaller than I remembered it. I only got teary a little bit...Next month we'll meet his teacher, and I'll be sure to post pics.

Zoo day and the missing tooth

We went to the zoo today. The Beluga whale was gone. Sad day. These are the only pics I'm posting, because how many times do you really need to hear about the zoo?

The real story is the missing tooth. Cooper had yet another tooth loose. All day we kept checking it and telling him that if he pulled out his tooth we'd get an icecream cone. After dinner we went to check again...it was gone. "Cooper, where's your tooth?" Without missing a beat... " I ate it."

Icecream it is. Tooth fairy dismissed from duty.

Making Pizza's with Grama

Tonight for boys night Cooper helped Grama Nina make mini-pizza's for dinner. He is such a big helper. We had alot of fun Thanks grama!

Class Pictures 2009

No goofy face this year. But still oh so cute!

Pulling teeth.

To begin this tale we must travel back in time to Feb. 19th. I was helping Cooper brush his teeth before bed, when I noticed he had a new tooth growing behind one tooth on the bottom. I thought that was weird and maybe I should take him to or call the dentist. When James got home that weekend I showed him my discovery and he too thought it was odd. While sitting in church, it came to me, (Ding, Lightbulb!), maybe his other tooth is loose. So I tried it, and sure enough it was. I could hardly believe that my little boy is old enough to lose teeth....he'll be five soon, but come on, has anyone else heard of a 4 1/2 year old loosing teeth? Well, since then we've been "trying" to get in there and wiggle it. Grampa Dave even offered Cooper $5 to pull it by himself or $10 to let him have a go at it. Cooper graciously let Grampa try a few times, but I think it started to hurt and he had had enough. He even let Uncle Dusty try a couple of times. Then just last Thursday he let Grama Nina try tugging it out with floss, it was hard to get the floss on that little thing, so Grama wanted to try pliers. I have to say I was a little surprised Cooper went with that plan.

Grama had to answer the phone, so she gave Cooper the pliers...with supervision, he tried, here's a quick video and how long that lasted...

I figured once he started pulling his tongue, the pliers idea wasn't going to work.

After that James and I tried to get in there and pull it, but he would just fuss and get mad.

Finally, to the present.

This morning Wonder Woman came to our house with Mr. T to play for awhile. She had just gone to the dentist herself and had a tooth removed. She showed Cooper where her tooth used to be. He was very interested in this, and kept asking to see it over and over. As I was chatting with my friend, Cooper exclaims, "I got it! It's out!" He came over and handed to WW and says, "I got it, here it is." Just like that. Wonder Woman Rocks! We did a victory dance and cheered for our little man.

You can already see his new tooth behind the little hole.

And so ends our 1st Tooth adventure, with more to come, but really there's no hurry.