A Sports Loving Family

The Coopers are a sports loving family!  Between Checkers and Hurricanes hockey, Panthers football, Duke basketball, English premier league football, Atlanta Braves baseball, Rugby, Cricket, etc. we pretty much love it all.  We don't discriminate!  :)

A couple of weeks ago we took the girls to watch the Checkers play.  Lottie has been several times and absolutely loves it.  This was Stella's second time watching them and she was as good as gold!  They both danced, cheered, clapped and smiled the entire game!

I love days like this!  It doesn't get much better!

Of course, ya'll know Steve can't go ANYWHERE without buying something for his girls.  All I know is he went to the bathroom and came back with Chubby!  

Later that afternoon, we all hung out in the backyard swinging, playing t-ball, climbing in forts and blowing bubbles!  Days like this have me yearning for Spring!  

We are off to Pigeon Forge / Gatlinburg tomorrow for a little mini family vacation!  Lottie and I are super excited that Steve and Stella will be joining us this year!  :)  

Happy Spring!

Lottie - 3 & 4 Year Growth

Lottie - 3 Years

Weight: 30 lb, 12.8 oz (50%)
Height: 3' (23%)
BMI: 16.72

We survived our first THREE years!  I sometimes can't believe we made it through the TWOs!  And from what I hear THREEs are much more, shall I say challenging????  WOOHOO!  :)

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HOLD UP!!!!!  I just saw the 3 year growth update in one of my draft folders!  I can't believe I never got around to posting Lottie's 3 year growth update!  On a side note, they weren't kidding about the THREEs!  :)

Oh well, now I will just get on with posting Lottie's 4 year growth update.  Drum roll please................................................ for the first time EVER, Lottie has finally gotten over the 50% hump in height!  She has always been around the 25% in height.  Steve and I could never understand why she was shaping up to be such a shorty considering neither of us are short.

Lottie - 4 Years

Weight: 37lb (67%)
Height: 3'4" (57%)
BMI: 16.26 (76%)

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I don't even know where to begin so I'll keep it short (if not, I will never finish this post).  This past year Lottie hit so many developmental milestones!  It has been such a gift to watch her breathe her first breath, take her first step, recognize her first object, write her name for the first time, etc.

I could go on for days about all of the things Lottie has learned to do - both mentally and physically this past year.  But, for today, I will just say how proud I am of the little girl she is growing into. She is polite, well-mannered and outgoing.  I truly can't imagine my life without this little person in it.  She makes me strive to be a better person every day.

Here's just a glance back from even before she was born................

I think I was right around 32 weeks pregnant with Lottie 

The day she was born - her BIRTH DAY 

1st Birthday

2nd Birthday

3rd Birthday

Lottie & Stella 

Lottie - 4 years

Stella - 22 months

4 year photos

We love you Lottie!  Although, I would give anything to keep you at this age forever, I can't wait to watch you grow this next year!

Stella - No More Monkeys!

Stella has become quite the little character!  This past weekend, I got the opportunity to spend a little one on one time with her while Steve and Lottie ran a few errands.  We read lots of books, jumped on the couch (her new favorite activity), ate snacks, played bouncy ball, etc.

Stella is usually pretty shy when it comes to taking photographs or video so it is extremely rare that I'm able to get her on camera for more than 15 seconds.

This past weekend, I caught just a little snip it of her jumping on the couch.  I definitely don't condone jumping on the couch, but she was just being so darn cute!

It is hard to believe this little monster is going to be TWO in May.  She is such a smart little cookie!  She copies everything Lottie says and quite often tells Lottie, "No Ma'am!!!" and "Lottie - you have a bad attitude!"  I swear she cracks me up!!!!    She is quite the little comic!

Lottie's 4th Birthday Party

For the past three years, I have thrown Lottie a birthday party at our house.  With her getting older and wanting to invite all of her friends from school, I thought something away from the house would be best this year.  Not to mention with all the construction going on, it would have been impossible to do anything at our house anyways.

Lottie loves art!  She loves to paint, draw, do crafts, etc.  With that in mind, I thought the perfect little party would be an artsy one.  We had her party at Noah's Art in Blakeney.  It is a cute little studio and all the kids had the place to themselves.  Lottie chose to do Frozen themed arts and crafts.  They played the Frozen soundtrack in the background and upon arrival, they gave all the kids painted tattoos on their hands.  They then invited them to a separate play area to play while waiting on all of the kids to arrive.  Once all of the kids arrived, they sat them down and talked about what crafts they would be doing for the day.

They did a total of four crafts.  The first craft they did was design their own crowns.  Of course my children did not want to wear them.  Lottie refused stating she just wanted to wear her headband.  The next craft was a beaded snowflake.  Then, they painted a Frozen picture and finally painted/colored/designed a wand.

All in all, the kids seemed to have a great time!  Lottie thanked me a million times for her party which made it all worth it.  She is such a great kid.  You couldn't ask for a more sweet, funny child.

Prepare for photo overload!  Maybe one of these days I'll figure out how to collage the photos as not to overwhelm you!  :)

Lottie dressed herself and insisted on wearing this dress paired with silver moon boots!  :)

The separate play area during breaks from crafts

Lottie's BFF Blake

My girls!  Lottie writing her name - making claims on that crown!

Pretty sure Stella stuffed a handful of beads in her mouth!  That was fun!  Note to self - she is still too young to have anything to do with beads!  Banned!

Aunt Amy helping Stella paint

Lottie's Birthday Cake - Frozen

I ended up getting her cake at Publix.  It was delicious!

Funny story...............

Stella is a beast!  After eating her own piece of cake, she continued to slide down the table and eat whatever cake was left on the plate from the other kids who had already gotten up from the table.  After we caught her, we all died laughing.  She didn't care one bit, she just continued stuffing her face with whatever cake she could find on the table!

These two.................  I could eat them up!  

Cake snatcher making her way down the table.................

They wrapped up the party by giving Lottie a big hug!  Too cute not to catch on video!  See above!

Following the party at Noah's Art, we had more family and friends come over to our house for pizza. 

Lottie got to blow out candles for the THIRD time that week!

The following day Lottie and Steve played with the present he got for her.  It is a scalextric race car track.  Pretty cool.  They played on it for hours.  I secretly think Steve bought this gift for himself!  

We also had an English tea party.  We all sat around drinking cups of tea and eating tea sandwiches and cake!  The girls loved it.

All in all, it was a great weekend!  I still can't believe my girl is 4!!!!!!!!!!  We love you so much Lottie!  I can't wait to watch you grow throughout this next year!