Cooper's birthday party...only a month late

We had a really fun 4th birthday party for Cooper last month (I am so far behind on blogging).  It was a beach/summer theme party.

This is the super cute invitation.  We had it on the Friday of Cooper's "summer break" from school.  They get two days off between school years, so the teachers can do inservice and the kids can get new classrooms.  We invited Cooper's class and a few of the kids came!  We also had most of Semmes' toddler group, plus a few kids from church.  It was a good time! 

I got Cooper the cutest little beach shirt with his name on it.

We did beachy muffins (muffins since it was in the morning).  They turned out so well!

Goldfish and Swedish fish in beach buckets.

The water was in an inflatable pool.

First, we played outside on the playground.  Semmes ran around like crazy and Cooper liked the swing.

Then we came inside to sing happy birthday and eat some yummy snacks!

Semmes liked the snacks (go figure)

Cooper ate some frosting.

We loved getting to see all of our friends on a weekday! 

We did it in the youth hall of our church.  It was perfect for Cooper because we could put him in his pony and let him go!

He had so much fun!

Our attempt at a family picture:

We had such a good time celebrating our big four-year-old!! 

Cooper and the pool

All summer, Cooper has hated, HATED, the pool. This is strange for him, because he's liked the pool every other year. I don't know what it was about this year-the unusual coolness of the water maybe-but he was having none if it.

So when we got to the beach, we just continued to avoid the pool. Instead, he sat next to the pool while everyone else swam.  Finally on Wednesday, I couldn't handle it anymore. It was late in the day, and if he got super mad it would be ok if we had to head back to the condo. Much to our surprise, he LOVED it. We put him in the water and he just laughed and laughed. He laughed like he was being ticked, uncontrollably. At one point, Brad actually thought I was ticking him-he was laughing that hard  It was awesome.

So after that we ended our day at the pool. Cooper was already loving vacation and this just made it even better. The last day, we got pictures:

18 month/4 year appointments

Wednesday, we had check-ups for both boys.  Cooper was asleep when we got there, woke up in the exam room, and immediately began screaming.  He stopped crying the minute we left the room.  Oh Cooper.  Semmes was not the biggest fan of having his head measured but was great other than that.

Semmes' measurements:

24.9 pounds (81st percentile, not surprising considering how much he eats)
32 inches tall (50th percentile)
head circumference is 19.5 inches (96th percentile, he has one HUGE head)

Cooper's measurements

38 inches (5th percentile)
36 pounds (50th percentile)

You see that percentile for his weight?  He is completely normal, weight-wise!!! OMG.  I feel like this is some sort of miracle.  Now if we could just get him to get a little taller...

All-in-all it was a completely unremarkable visit.  Semmes is completely normal, development-wise.  We hadn't seen Dr. Becton for Cooper in so long (yay!) that she couldn't believe how big he had gotten.  They're both doing just great!

Thoughts about Semmes

Semmes was 17 months old on Tuesday, and he's great.  So I want to write a quick post about some of the cute/funny/weird things he's up to at this stage.

1.  He's a climber.  I swear he sees a chair and thinks, "Challenge accepted!"  And he's really good at it...until he tries to get down.  The other day, I came into the kitchen and found him sitting on the kitchen table eating goldfish out of a bag.  When he saw me, he immediately started stuffing goldfish into his mouth, chipmunk style, because he knew I was going to take them away.  I think he got five or six in there before I got to him.

Hamming it up at the zoo:

2. He's never met a stranger.  He says, "Hi!" and waves at everyone.  Last Sunday was the start of the education year at church, so it was packed.  I went and got him so he could take communion with us (he's eating the wafer now, obviously).  When we came into church, everyone was praying in unison, but he stuck his hand into the air and started waving and yelling, "HI!!!" as loudly as he could.  It caused a bit of a stir around us.  Thankfully, he's super cute.

3.  He loves books.  And loves to "read."  He'll just sit in his chair or on the floor and look at books.  Plus, he knows tons of words now, so you'll see him pointing at things in books and saying their names.  Or at least, his names for them.

Semmes and some friends at the zoo.  He calls all of his friends "Etta," I think because it's the easiest name to say.  Plus, she's the prettiest.

4.  He knows lots of animal names, just not how to say them.  Instead, most of the time, he just says the sound they make.  So if you say, "cow," he says, "moo."  He USED to say "oink" for a pig, but Brad taught him how to snort, so now that's what he does for pig.  It's gross/weird.

Sixteen months:

5.  He's learned to kiss.  Books, his friends, us, Cooper, he kisses it all.  And it's ridiculously cute.

6.  He sleeps with Elmo and Ribbit, a giant frog.  Every nap time and every night, he gets into my lap with Elmo and Ribbit and we read The Pout Pout Fish, then he sleeps.  He calls the pout pout fish "Blub," since this is what the fish says.  P.S. If you don't have that book, you should check it out.  It's super cute.

Semmes at 17 months: