This weekend we went to the lake for my Nannie's 80th birthday party. It was a lovely party with lots of her friends and family there including my cousin Jenny DeWitt and her family. Jenny is the grand-daughter of Nannie's second husband Olen who was very special to me. He died in the mid-90s but I have stayed close with his son Howard and his wife Jackie as well as their daughter Jenny. When they decided to come down from Oklahoma for the party, I was so excited that they wanted to stay with us. I have watched their oldest son Austen grow into a wonderful young man and now they have a baby named Cole who is 6 days younger than Cooper. I couldn't wait to see Cooper and Cole together (pics here). They hit it off pretty much right away. Cole was clearly more subdued than Cooper. While it could have been their ages, I suspect it was because Cooper was more in his element with family members all around with he whom he is more comfortable with including MaMaw, Zach, Emily and his Aunts Stacy and Sam. We took the boys out to play at Nannie's house after the party and got some great pics of them in swing together and also playing in the leaves. They got along very well as evidenced by these cute pictures of Cooper and Cole at lunch. What cracks me up is Cooper opening his mouth while feeding Cole... this is so similar to what he and I go through at every meal! Cooper was definitely the aggressor and poor Cole was absolutely at his mercy.

Jenny and family left on Sunday afternoon and Danny and I decided to stay Sunday night and come home Monday morning. So, GrandMother stayed a while and we put up the Christmas tree. We usually do Christmas down there and weren't sure when we were going to be down again, so we took advantage of the afternoon while Danny watched football. Cooper wasn't real sure what was going on with a tree in the house, but as soon as we pulled out the toys (ie. ornaments) he wanted to play too. He helped us get the tree decorated and the Santa's put out on display.

This last picture is of Cooper watching football while we finished the tree. He is getting to be such a little monkey. He climbs on ladders and chairs, balances on rocking horses, and now is doing his own version of pilates balancing in the plank position in front of the TV. Amazing.