Marvelous March

The day before leaving to Canada, we finally had Damon's birthday party. It was Angry Bird themed and we all had a lot of fun!





The next day started early as we had to catch a 6:30am flight first to Denver and then to Calgary. Poor little Cooper had a bad cold and hardly slept, so he had a rough morning but we made it.
Sick baby snuggles


Watching Great Grandpa Campbell play the saxaphone at a nursing home. This particular nursing home is where mom's Great Aunt Jo lives. She was married to Emil Schlenker, my Grandpa (Ralph) Schlenker's Brother and the youngest of the 10 Schlenker children. He passed away not even a year ago. It was such a joy talking her and hearing many stories from the past. It reminded me of how fortunate we are to come from such incredible families. Mom's middle name is Kathryn which was the name of her Great Grandma Schlenker and mother of those 10 Schlenker children, 8 of which were boys. Her husband, Emmanuel died at the age of 39 when Emil was only 6 weeks old. She raised 10 children on her own and lived a long life, dying at the age of 89. Talk about coming from a heritage of strong mothers.

We got to spend lots of time with mom's high school friends and their kids. As Always, we forgot to take pictures but mom did snag this shot with her friend Eryn's daughter, Celine.

Visiting the tallest Teepee in the world


Damon can't visit Canada without getting a goose egg.
Bubble Monsters in the big tub


Visiting Memorial park and walking on the bridge above the South Saskatchewan River


Lots of stairs to learn this on


Auntie Deb along with Landon and his wife and Tyson and his girlfriend came over for supper and games. Later in the visit we got to Celebrate Deb's birthday by going bowling with them too.


Painting eggs with shaving cream with our cousins and grandma

Playing at the elementary school play ground where mommy went to school


When mommy went out with her friends one night, Grandma and Papa helped us make this huge club house. We even got to sleep in it.


We had fun visiting Great Grandma and Grandpa Campbell. We made dough animals (a Grandma Campbell tradition) and had an Easter egg hunt at the park.



Cooper was so much help in the kitchen as always

We headed back up to Calgary before flying out and mommy went to the temple with some of the family which was really special.

On the last night mom was irresponsible and instead of going to bed early she went roller skating with Laurel, Derek and his girlfriend, Kianna. It was so worth it!
Layover in Denver on the way home back to Daddy!

Busy Birthday Month

Cooper, 1 year old (Feb 18)


Will eat anything you put in front of him
Can sign "eat", "more", "milk", "all done"
Blows kisses, give real (slobbery) kisses, clap and crawl like a mad man
Can pull himself up to standing position and starting to cruise along furtinure
has 6 teeth
Completely weened and loves his bottle
Starting to transition from 2 naps to 1 nap which seems early but mom is thrilled. One nap will give us a bit more freedom which will be especially nice as we continue to babysit other children.
Such a copy cat with dance moves, waving, shhhhing, sticking his tongue out and loud noises.
Numbers:
Height: 2ft 5in (37 percentile... shorty, at least in this family)
Weight: 18.8lbs (up to 10th percentile)
Head: 18.5in (76th percentile)

Piano with buddy, Eddie


And Lots of vidoes:









For Cooper's birthday party we invited the Fullmers and Landry's family over and played some games Cooper could participate in: toilet paper unrolling, tissue pulling, crawling, drooling and looking cute.





Damon, 3 years old (Feb 24)

Starting round 2 of potty training and doing great so far. He prefers to go on his own terms and not get mom involved (unless he goes #2 and wants a reward).
Picked out a scooter with Grandparent birthday money and loves riding it and his strider
Has a very good arm and loves playing catch and baseball
Still no broken bones or serious injuries despite his crazy, and at times, reckless style of play
Loves having chores like his older brother. He currently is in charge of taking out the recycling, putting his folded laundry away, and clearing the dinner table.
His communication skills are excellent. He is learning how to express himself more and more everyday and is starting to ask more and more questions.
His interest in writing, letters and numbers has increased and he loves tracing his and his brother's names.
Enjoying swim lessons in the same class as Houston
Still napping the majority of the time, but can get by without
Finally sleeping through the night more often than not
Still eats in small amounts but is good at trying to new things
Numbers:
Still 8th percentile for weight, 70th for height. Getting more agile and coordinated every day with his long, lean little body.




Damon's actual birthday friend party is tomorrow. We'll have to post pictures in the next post.

Mommy, 29 years old (Feb 7)
Can no longer claim she dislikes beans because she eats them all the time.
Taking on more and more piano students and loving it. A good friend of hers is done teaching so she is getting a lot of referrals and actually needs to draw the line somewhere...
Still has no time or energy for exercise but longs for it desperately.
Continues to love her calling as the Personal Progress advisor in Young Women's. Currently the group is learning to sew by making skirt extenders.
We'll leave out mommy's numbers for now ;)

We can't neglect to mention Houston. He is also loving swim lessons and gets braver with every lesson. He is at least a foot taller than each kids in the class. He is also very excited to begin Kindergarten. We currently have 3 school options and we will hopefully have a plan in place by April.







Daddy is the Cubmaster so we like attending the pack meetings he plans


Preschool field trip to the Western Colorado Museum


sickies

So helpful...not