New Hamlin Girl

We have a new little girl in the Hamlin Family (from Joshua's oldest brother Rick). This makes 7 girl cousins for Cooper (8 Hamlin girls with Maylea). Poor Cooper is the only boy. We all claim to be done having children so we will pray that Aunt Cori has a boy some day so that Cooper has one boy in his family.

Faith Violet Hamlin was born at 1:50 AM on January 29th (Kansas Day). Lacie went into labor and dilated all the way to 10 when Faith decided she wanted to come out "sunny side up". They ended up in the operating room for a c-section. 8 lbs. 6 oz. 21 inches long. She was the same size (minus 1/2 in.) as Cooper was. Even their heads are big... 14 inches.

Violet was Rick and Joshua's grandmothers name and it was also the name of Lacie's grandmother's twin. We were able to pop in for just a couple minutes on Friday night to see them. I didn't have my camera with me so the picture of Cooper and Faith was taken with my phone. The other 5 were emailed to me. I did play with a couple of them just for fun.....no laughing!!!!!

A proud big sister. Olivia was their youngest at 8. Claire is 11, but came down with a nasty cold and couldn't come visit.

Maylea 9 months

No shots this time, just once again found out we have a BIG little girl. Maylea was "perfect" during the appt. She didn't have any hesitation to the nurse or Dr. taking her from daddy. When I asked Joshua later how it went, he said, "she was awesome!"

Measurements:
30 inches long (off the charts)
19 lbs. 10 oz. (75%) we managed to put a little weight on her like the Dr. suggested
Head is 16.5 in.

Cooper at 9 months:
29 1/2 inches (95%)
21 lbs. (75%)

My children are very similar in size. You can see how although Maylea weighs a little less she is beating him in height. I am curious how long this will continue. Cooper has already grown out of the toddler section (as far as pants go). Will Maylea do the same at just 3 yrs. old?

She is really starting to move around. She walks along things, and pushes her little dolly stroller around. Most recently she has started waving bye bye and clapping. We are still waiting for her vocal development. The Dr. doesn't seem to be concerned yet. We have noticed in the last week or so she has started, "ba ba ba" when she is really happy.

Saturday with grandma and grandpa

Joshua is in Vegas and I had to work a crop all day on Saturday (1/16/10) so the kids spent the day in Wichita with mom and dad. They stayed very busy all day at Aunt Cori's volleyball tournament, Great Plains Nature Center, visiting great grandpa and grandma Meyer, and just a little bit of shopping. Cooper was a good little boy for them (PHEW!) and he had a great time. There aren't to many pictures to share, but they got a few taken.

Cooper was being ornery (what's new?) while grandma was trying to get his picture. Grandma said, "Cooper please give grandma a normal smile." Cooper threw his arms together and said, "FINE!" Normally, I get upset when he talks to us this way (because it isn't normally in a nice tone or at an appropriate time), but this time it was cute......and so is the picture!

Cooper was one tired little boy at the end of the day. He climbed up into grandma's lap and within 5 min. he was out. Daddy even called right before he started to nod off and he didn't show much interest in talking.

Cooper says....

This part of the post is more for me than anything. I want to be able to remember some of the things Cooper says that we find funny (even when we shouldn't).

Maylea crawled over to my Jade plant and was playing in the dirt. She was trying to put some of it in her mouth when Cooper saw her and ran over, "no no baby sister, that is not grandma's special dirt. You don't eat it." (Grandma makes the Oreo and chocolate pudding stuff and Cooper loves to ask grandma if he can eat some dirt. She even makes it in a flower pot for him!)

I had Maylea sitting on my lap and was saying, "ma ma ma ma, da da da da". Cooper comes running out of his room, "brrrooooottttthhhhheeerrrrr, brrrooootttthhhheeerrrrrr".

While I was home with the kids during a snow day, Cooper was playing in his room. When I walked in I found such a mess. He had found the cake topper from our wedding and had taken it out and broke the Styrofoam up into so many pieces. The stuff was everywhere. The little white balls were sticking to EVERYTHING thanks to the dry/static air. It was such a mess. I grabbed Cooper and we were in the bathroom washing his hands (still can't remember why) when Cooper looks up at me and says, "momma are you pissed off?" Not gonna lie, I was so mad, but at that point I was so shocked that came out of his mouth I had to fight back a smile. He said it so seriously!

Cooper gets control of the camera

Nap time for Maylea

We got our finger in the way.

Urbanek Christmas

On Sunday (12/27/09) we had our Urbanek Christmas in Smolan. We had pizza for lunch, visited, and did our traditional gift exchange. The kids had a blast playing together!!!

Aunt Tammi and Olivia

Aunt Peggy, Melody, Katelyn, Polaris, Brenda & Maylea, Aunt Lori, Josh M.

Much of the gang visiting

Josh M., Brenda, Maylea, Olivia, Aunt Tammi

Aunt Lori and Katelyn

Aunt Dalene, Aunt Peggy, Cori, Lisa, Keira

My cousins kids

Lunch time!

Another Olivia

Landin, Lane, and Cooper

Lane and Cooper

Jenny, Aunt Dalene, Andrew (Olivia)

Uncle Carl, Cori, MyselfLane, Landin, Cooper, Katelyn, Melody, Olivia

Wrestling

Christmas

Right now I am FRUSTRATED and tired. This post is not anything that I would like it to be. I will hopefully get back to this to get into more detail. I can not get ANY of my pictures or videos that I have to upload (or even be read) to the computer. These are a few pictures that mom took with her camera. I hope that I can get my disk figured out and uploaded sooner than
later. For now.......here you go!!!!

Cooper is reading a book to grandma and grandpa Meyer

Maylea and grandpa Christmas morning

Maylea ready for church (without her ADORABLE hair bow)

Cooper loves grandma's village. He could not keep his hands off of it.

Cooper was helping grandpa set the table. They were making sure all the water spots were off the silverware before they put it out.

I had these cute shirts for the kids to wear.

Cooper's said: Dear Santa, my sister did it.

Maylea's said: Dear Santa, I was framed!

I thought they were so cute. I have a couple really cute pictures of them wearing them together, but of course they are on my camera.

Santa's "rain" deer

Joshua picked the kids up from daycare last week. After they left and pulled out onto the road, Joshua saw a deer crossing up ahead, then another, and another. By this time, he has come to a complete stop in the road as about 10 deer cross the road right in front of them. The whole time Cooper is going nuts in the back seat, "daddy another deer, see all of them......." Finally all the deer are gone and they are able to head home. About a mile up the road Cooper starts explaining what kind of deer those were to daddy. "Hey daddy, those were just regular deer. Those weren't Santa's reign deer. Those kind of deer don't like the rain, they were just regular deer. Right daddy?"

Grandma's little helper

When we got to grandma and grandpa's today, grandma was trying to get her tree and village out. Grandma was just about done with the tree, but we got here just in time for Cooper to help with the tensile.

This one was just too cute not to put on here!

TARC - Winter Wonderland

Last weekend (12/5), we didn't have much going on so we all loaded up in the van and drove to Topeka. Every year at Lake Shawnee they light up the park with Christmas lights. Some of these lights are animated and we thought that Cooper would enjoy it. We went when Cooper was 1 1/2, but the experience was so much better this time. TARC is the Topeka Association for Retarded Children. It is a $7 donation to drive through the park.

Our first stop was Red Lobster for dinner, then for coffee and hot chocolate. When we got there we put Cooper on Joshua's lap and started our trek.

I started a video while we were driving merely for you to hear how excited Cooper was about everything. I got about a minute of video when it stopped because the disk was full. However, I think you will be able to tell how much he enjoyed the experience.