A few new family members

We added a few new members to our family (no, not Cooper). Some of our neighbors were getting rid of some guinea pigs so we decided to give the whole pet thing a try. Matt's not too excited about it, but I'm glad that I had pets growing up and I want our children to have that opportunity. I don't want a dog and Matt is allergic to cats (not that I want one of those either), so I think something like this is probably our best option. So we have two girl guinea pigs, named Cupcake and Mini Gili. We've had them for about a week and a half, so we'll see how this goes. So far, so good.

Eliza is 7 months

Just a little update on Eliza. I don't think I ever posted about Eliza's 6 month check-up. She weighed in at 19 lb 12 oz and was 28.5 inches long, which put her in the 96th percentile for weight and 99th percentile for height. She's a chunky monkey! But so dang cute too! I just love her. She is much lazier when it comes to rolling and crawling than the boys were, but maybe she gets held a little more? I don't know. She is rolling over, but she just started doing it on a regular basis recently. She doesn't have any interest in getting up on her arms when she is on her tummy, she just lays there and will occasionally look up. At this rate she will be crawling at age 2. :-) She doesn't have any teeth yet, which is fine with me. She finally started eating her cereal and food well, but she still won't take a bottle. She seems more interested in sippy cups so maybe we will just skip bottles all together. She is so much fun and we just love her to pieces. Below are a few more pictures of her I've taken over the last couple weeks. She LOVES her tongue and wants to make sure it's in almost every picture I take. :-)
David and Goliath, or maybe Eliza and Tess? This is Eliza's cousin that was born March 9th. So cute! We were so happy when Michelle had a girl so that Eliza would have a girl cousin her age.

Farewell Penelope

Last week we sold my car Penelope to my brother Denny. I've had Penelope for 10 years and she was a great car for me, so it was kind of hard to let her go, but at least we are keeping her in the family, which is good cause I bought her from my sister, so she's just a "Vincent family" car. Farewell Penelope, thanks for being a great car!

Cooper turned 3!

On March 20th, Cooper turned 3. In some ways, I can't believe he's already 3, and in other ways I can't believe he's only 3. He is such a big boy and has been wearing 3T and 4T clothes for so long that it seems like he should be turning 4. He finally decided that going potty in the big boy toilet wasn't so bad and has been fully potty trained for about a month. He did so great the first week without a single accident and then the second week he had about 3 accidents, with one time going poo in his underwear (yuck!). But overall, I really can't complain. I guess it pays to wait until they are ready - a lot less accidents to deal with. He is such a fun boy and keeps us laughing with his funny sense of humor. Last night he said "C-o-o-p-e-r. What does that spell? Crazy!". Also last week when he was using the bathroom he said "Mom, I had a HUGE poop" and then a minute later he said "Mom, a whole family of poops". He has us wrapped around his finger! LOVE HIM! Below are a couple pictures of his cake. Luckily I did have a little bit of help from my sister-in-law. I had baked the cake and frosted it, but she was here a little early and I hadn't written anything on the cake so I turned that over to her while I finished getting dinner ready, and she did a better job than I would have done for sure. I think it turned out pretty cute. Cooper is such a sports fanatic, and with his birthday being right in the middle of March Madness (his bracket won by the way, he predicted UConn to win it all), the basketball cake was a hit!
Lately whenever I take a picture of Cooper he pulls some sort of funny face, so I figured "why not" when I was taking the pic of him with his cake.
Here's Coop with his stash from his birthday. He got a bunch of books, a little leap pad, a baseball glove and baseball (which he slept with that night), a helmet, new underwear, golf clubs, and a BIG baseball. Overall he was pretty excited about all his gifts! Love this little man.

A very social week

A few weeks ago we had a VERY social week. On Saturday, March 12th, we had a reunion with my "kids" from Governor's Honor Academy. I was their counselor 11 years ago, and this was the first time we've been together since shortly after that. One of the girls wasn't able to make it, but we had a great time and it was fun to see where life has taken all of us the past decade.What a wonderful (and accomplished) group of people they are! Hopefully we can get together again before another decade passes. (not sure why that's underlined)
Two days later, we had my Stake President (and great friend) from college and his wife over for dinner. President Bulloch is one of my favorite people, and again, I hadn't seen him since I moved to Chicago, which was 10.5 years ago, so it was so wonderful to see him again. They came over on March 14th, which happened to be "Pi Day", so we had Chicken pie for dinner and then I made Banana cream pie and candy bar pie for dessert. We had a wonderful visit and a fun family home evening together. I love seeing old friends!
Three days later was St. Patty's day, so we had a little St. Patrick's day party and invited a few friends over. We all brought something green to share, and had a great time together. I think the highlight of the night was when Matt agreed to do his Michael Flatley impersonation. For anyone who might not know Michael Flatley, he is the "Lord of the dance" and main guy of Riverdance. Matt impersonates him pretty well. He's such a fun guy, I love being married to him!
Two days later we had my siblings and their families over to celebrate Cooper and my nephew's birthdays. Cooper turned 3 and Sam had just turned 4 the week before. We also used it as a little "farewell" for Jason, my brother-in-law, who was moving to Montana 2 days later. My sister and her girls will move up once school is out. We will sure miss having them close. I am so blessed to have so many wonderful people in my life!