A fun weekend with my "buddy" Cooper!

This weekend my niece Jennifer, her husband Zach, and their adorable 14 month old, Cooper came for a visit. I was so excited they could visit because we never get to talk with them all alone- we're always with a bunch of family- so it was a nice change. Even though they are MUCH younger than we are, we're all going through the stages of parenting close together, so we have lots to talk about. On Saturday we took them with us to the annual Parents as Teachers holiday event at our local school. Allison loved all the activities, but I think Cooper could have stayed at the "shoveling snow" area the whole time. :)

Allison was quite jealous of Cooper the entire time, which was a bit exhausting for everyone, I'm sure. If I said, "Oh, Cooper, you are just so adorable!" she'd say, "NO, I'M adorable!!" After awhile I wanted to say, "Not so much right now!", but I didn't. I was nice. :) She's also developing a bit more empathy, though, and that's good. If Cooper cried, Allison had to cry too. That wasn't much fun. She was honestly just so sad for him when he was upset. Normally she lets babies cry and just goes about her way, but not this time. When they left our house today she was in desperate need of mommy alone time, so we played a lot.

The pictures are mainly of us enjoying the Parents as Teachers event (she willingly went to Santa and told him her list!), but it also includes one of Allison at her music lessons. The first week we took her she was very shy, wouldn't participate much, and just looked sullen. We thought, great, we just wrote this big check and she's not even going to like it! But this time she loved every bit of it. She danced, sang, played all the instruments, laughed, etc. YEAH!!

I'll leave this post with a funny story from today. Last week we ate at a restaurant that served waffle-cut fries, and she LOVED them. She wanted nothing to do with Daddy's normal fries-she only wanted to share my special fries. Today we went to the same place for lunch, so I ordered the waffle fries again, and we shared them. Once in the car she said, "I REALLY liked those pancake fries!" :) No one every told me how much my child would crack me up on a daily basis! :)