Good Times with The Gray's

June 29, 2010







June 29, 2011


Sorry for the fuzzy picture, my mom is no photographer! ;)



Happy Birthday to you...Happy Birthday to you...Happy Birthday dear Cooper...Happy Birthday to YOU!


A year ago on June 29th you were born at 5:34 pm you weighed 8lbs. 4 oz. and were 22 in. long. Even though I don't remember a lot after your birth, I DO remember how I felt when they placed you in my arms. I was overwhelmed with love and your daddy and I just cried and smiled down at our precious gift from God! You are one special little boy and we have had so much fun this year watching you grow and develop!

At 12 months you are walking and talking-you just started saying mama, dada, nono, and a few other babbles. You know that you control your voice because you get LOUD! The talking began the day after we came back from Disney World. I guess you had been listening for so long that you just couldn't take it anymore! You are very busy and are in to everything that you shouldn't be! Typical behavior for your age!

You love cars and anything that you can steer or sit on. Each time we are in nana's play room you go right to the mini 4 wheeler and jump on. While we wait for the car to cool off on these hot summer days, I let you hold on to the steering wheel and you know just what to do! I am not sure how boys know how to like boy toys but you do!



You are still a very good eater! You take 2-3 6 oz. bottles a day and we are slowing trying to wean you off of the bottle. You do not drink anything but formula out of a bottle. You love water and applejuice and will drink it out of any sippy cup or out of a cup with a straw. You love lots of table food and you try new things all the time.

You are an okay sleeper. We usually put you down around 8:30 or 9:00 and you will snooze until about 3:00am, then you wake up and whine until we get you. You go back down most of the time without a bottle and sleep until 7-8 am. I think that this routine has become a habit due to our living arrangement. I hope you will sleep all through the night as soon as we get adjusted in our new home!

You are wearing size 3 diapers, but I think we will start you in 4's pretty soon! You are wearing 12 month clothes some 12-18 month stuff too. You are a big boy but your weight is still proportionate to your height. You are 32 in long and 24 lbs. 6 oz. Dr. B said you are at the very top of the charts for your height and are 70% for your weight. At this rate you will be taller than me in just a few years! You are one healthy lil boy!

I must add that you are the most smiley, flirty, social baby that I know! Every where we go it is your goal to get someones attention and bring them over to talk to you! It cracks me up how you are already so social without being able to talk. You got those skills from you daddy! You do not get extremely fussy unless you are tired! I am so glad that you are a happy go lucky kind of guy!

Cooper will officially be one tomorrow June 29th, but this past weekend our friend and photographer Jennifer Matlock came and took his photos. Look at this little sweetheart! He has changed so much just in the last few weeks! I will give his official 12 month post tomorrow to update you on what he is doing, for now take a look at my lil sugar!

The driveway and sidewalk have been poured!

The lighting fixtures and carpet are in!

Close up of the light in the dining room

View of living room with carpet and ceiling fan!

Master bath, waiting on wood around mirror to be painted!

Jacuzzi tub! Ahhhhh yes please! Mama misses her baths!

Fixture above the front door entrance. Waiting on the front door to be stained and put in place.

Here is the door, upside down!

Cooper's room complete with carpet and ceiling fan!

We are back from the magical land of Disney World! The much anticipated trip began at 4 am Saturday June 18. We woke up at 4 left the house by 5 swung by my bro and sis in laws house and were on our way to the airport by 5:20. If you know me, you know that mornings are not my favorite and it was super difficult to get going! My mom had the exact opposite attitude and she was pumped! She kept telling Cooper and Hadley "we are going to see Mick Mouse" or as Hadley calls him "kiki".
Mamas and our boys...on the bus from Remote Parking to Terminal! It was early!

We got to the airport about 6 am and noticed a very LARGE line to check in to our airline. We were told that the computers went down and that was the reason for the slow paced line. We finally made it to the front about an hour later (insert sleepy, restless baby whining here). The lady at the desk proceeds to tell us that we will not be boarding our 7:40 flight because we did not have boarding passes prior to check in. WHAT?!! We still had 30-40 min. until our plane left. Ridiculous! We asked when the next flight was, she then says that we will be flying stand by and hopefully we will be in Orlando by the end of the day! ARE YOU KIDDING! I open my mouth and say "We better or we are going to have issues", she then tells me that if we are going to have issues than she can call security and have us arrested, FOR REAL...do I look like I am going to throw down in the airport! She was RUDE! It was looking like we were going to be missing a full day of Disney park time and we were ticked to say the least! We decided to shut our mouths so that we didn't create any more drama than we already were experiencing and go through security to our gate. We check in at the gate so that we can fly stand by...when my mom and dad calmly explain that all 8 of us, 6 adults and 2 babies will be getting on a plane today and that we will not be missing our vacation because of their computer system. The lady conviently remembered that there was a direct flight to Orlando at 3:00 that afternoon. Problem solved, however we did not receive an apology and we had to call AirTran's HR department and request food vouchers. Way to go customer service dpt...NOT! We waited 8 hours with a one year old and a two year old!! Let's just say they ran free a lot of the time and we just ran with them. Sorry to all the travelers but the boys had a lot of cooped up energy! What were we to do??!!!
Here are Hads and Coop playing around in their matching Cars shirts... thanks Aunt Nette!

This is Saratoga Springs Resort, aka our condo!

Here we are headed to Breakfast with Mickey at 6am Florida time = 5 am Texas time

Sporting our Disney love EARLY!!
"Hey Cooper, we finally get to see Mickey!"

Instead of narrating our entire trip I will just share some photos and tell where you we were. Enjoy!

The Castle during the day! It was even better at night, but I will show you that later!
I love these balloons! They were being sold on Main Street inside the Magic Kingdom Park!

We are about to ride It's a Small World! And Cooper LOVED it! Seeing his face was priceless!
I told you his face was priceless! I snapped a photo of him in our boat! It speaks for itself!

Waiting in line to ride a fun Jungle Safari ride. We never had to wait more than 10-15 min. for a ride or show! Thank goodness because it was HOT! The humidity was awful!

Cooper soaking it all in! Did I mention he was good? He and Hadley were ready for anything we chose to do!

Coop and daddy while we were riding the train! Hadley calls it a choo choo!
Hadley and Cooper with their Nana and Grandpa on the bus back to our condo. They were being VERY silly at the end of this day!

We had dinner reservations over at Disney's Hollywood Studios park at the Prime Time Diner, it was "home cooked food" and the restaurant looked like "Mom's house" in the 50's.
Silly boy! He and Hadley were delirious by the end of the first day!

The next day we had breakfast at Animal Kingdom, but this time at 10:00 instead of 7:00! Much better:)


After breakfast we saw Finding Nemo The Musical and it was SOOOOOOOO AWESOME! It was the best musical I have ever seen! The colors, props, characters were all fabulous! At the end bubbles poured from the ceiling and covered the audience! This was one of my favorite parts of the trip. I did not take any pictures, no flash photography was allowed :(

We ventured into Downtown Disney, just a few miles away from our resort. DD was a marketplace loaded with shops, restaurants, a margarita bar and more! I snapped this photo while walking by the Lego shop!

This statue of Buzz and Woody was made entirely out of Legos! There were many more Lego statues, however I only captured this one!
This was a restaurant that we ate at one night in DD called T-Rex. It was such a neat place to eat, each habitat was a dining room in the restaurant...we ate in the ice cave. Every 20 minutes the whole place went dim and there was a meteor shower! So fun! We joked and said we felt like the Flinstones! In the entrance of the restaurant was a Build a Dinosaur shop...it was owned by and ran just like Build a Bear. We created a Saber Tooth Tiger for Cooper and named him Sabe.

The castle before the light show began.
And the castle during the light show


I wish you could see it in person! It gave me chills! My brother and sis in law videoed it, maybe I can post some of the video! After the holograph show was a tribute to wishing upon a star followed by fire works. It was such a special moment to share with my family. Cooper fell asleep in my arms and at that moment I was overcome with joy to have such a healthy baby boy and a wonderful husband. My wish that I made to live happily ever after has come true!

One of our last days was spent back at Disney's Hollywood Studios. Here we rode a few rides with the kids... a Buzz lightyear ride, the carousel and a few without the kids...the Aerosmith Roller coaster (best roller coaster ever!) and The Tower of Terror. Nana and grandpa took the kiddos for a bit so us big kids could play!

We also played in the gift shops, took pictures with more characters, saw a few shows and even an afternoon parade. Take a look...

Beauty and the Beast of course! I still remembered all the words to the songs! Princess at Heart :)

Of course we did so much more than I can share, but as you can see we had a great time in Disney World!

Cooper and daddy on the way to get our car at the airport! Home sweet home! Our amazing vacation came to an end on Thursday night June 23.