Counting to 10 + 3.5 minutes of other stuff

The following video is four minutes long, which means those of you with a 21st century attention span probably won't make it through the whole thing.  No worries.  If you can't sit still through four minutes of my incredibly cute daughter being incredibly cute it just means you're modern; in no way does it imply that you're an awful human being.  This is really for Paige, who loves watching videos of herself.  Ecclesiastes tells us that 'all is vanity,' so I figure why fight it?

Paige has been learning to count over the last couple of months.  She nailed the whole 1-10 thing a while ago but she still hasn't quite learned that numbers correspond with things.  I got excited the other day because we had a small break-thru whilst counting some plastic cups she likes to play with.  Paige very patiently pointed at each one, assigned it one (and only one) number, and stopped upon reaching the last cup.  We did this together for about 10 minutes, but when I went to film she was only willing to do it once, and even then it was a half-effort.  Regardless, I kept the film rolling and captured three minutes of Paige being Paige - this is a very good example of her sense of play, which seems like a good thing to record for posterity.  So all you grandmas out there: enjoy four minutes of cuteness.  Everyone else, when you get bored after 30 seconds I found this great site you can go to: it's called 'youtube.'

Quoth the Paige

"Mommy, pea'ut butter is bad. Very bad. It dangerous. An' nummy."

Jumpin' June

We had so many exciting things happen the last couple of weeks, and we actually took pictures of them! The only problem was that we took most of the pictures with Nathan's camera, so I just barely got the exciting ones. Moral of the story? I need to buy myself a really fancy camera. Yep. Lesson learned.

Anyway, let's start at the beginning. The beginning of June, that is.
First off: an early birthday party at the zoo with her best buds, Gabriel and Taylor! Paige has since decided that her favorite animal is the monkey. 

 The animal fun didn't stop there though. The next Tuesday we went to Tracy Aviary with the scouts! We got to throw seed to some pretty mallards, watch the staff feed a condor, and chase peacocks until they chased us back! (Not recommended). I make full apologies to all birds involved. Sorry for the fowl play.

That same week, we started swim lessons!

 

Since we'd eaten cake and ice cream the week before, Paige had a pudding cup with blueberries and candles on it. She didn't seem to mind. (This is the smile she gives me whenever I point a camera at her)

As for this last week, we started with a Father's Day present that anyone called 'Father' should have:

Then we upped the ante by adding in a handful of cousins and a family reunion!

 
Complete with wagon rides,

donut-eating contests,

bobbing for apples,

and all kinds of races!

Guess who won the tug-of-war?

June's been such a fun month. We're sad to go back to normal life again. Well, as normal as it gets around here.

(In case you can't tell (which you probably can't) those are animal print oven mitts on her feet. We've got a winner here.)

From the Archives

People tell me every once in a while that Paige looks exactly like me. To me, Paige just looks like Paige, though I can pick out a feature or two that come from either me (nose) or Jeff (hairline). However, coming across this picture while scanning some old photos was a little startling:

For reference, this one was taken last week:

Because comparison is just that fun, here's Grandpa Cooper:

Grandma Cooper:

AND Grandpa Tucker:

What a bunch of cuties! No wonder we're related.

Did I just call my Father-in-Law a cutie?

Spring into Summer

When we last left our heroes, they were in the throws of the bipolar storm called Utah's springtime. A few days after the snowstorm noted in the previous post, the weather turned gorgeous and we had Easter celebrations outside in the yard. Despite the straight face, Paige loved the Cooper egg hunt in the orchard. Some days, a smile just doesn't happen.

Jeff's current favorite color is yellow, so Paige got a yellow Easter dress, crowned with forsythia from the backyard. And a lamby. She loves being a twirly princess when she's not watching or playing with trucks.

Then, the weather turned sour again, so we skipped town with some friends and spent the weekend in St. George! We were really sad to come back home.

(This was the favorite game for all children in the condo.) Since then, we've been enjoying the slightly more stable weather by going to the park (and taking pictures with the Coopers' new DSLR!)

By this time, I was just playing around with techniques that I've learned, but haven't used in...six years. Yikes, was high school really that long ago? I love looking at the differences in lighting.

I have camera envy.

We were going to go to the park today

I think we'll pass this time.


P.S.-I made the bag using the tutorial found here!

Enjoying the Wildlife

It's officially spring in Utah and we have been loving it. The sun is shining, the air is warm, and popcorn is popping on the...plum tree.

Apparently, apricots are so last year. Not a single bloom. This purple tree has them both beat though.

We got an advertizement last week from our local farmer supply store that they had chicks and bunnies for sale, and we took Paige down for a look and a pet.
All the farmers got there first though, I guess, since all that was left was a fat rabbit.

Paige was still pretty excited.


Since the store didn't have any ducks, we stopped by the duck pond south of BYU campus. I think it was a hit.



Even more exciting than ducks and bunnies, Grandma and Grandpa came into town for conference! It was a fun couple of days of being utterly spoiled.
Paige also discovered that she likes Masterpiece Theater. It all made us antsy to move to Baltimore. Three months left.



I love spring.