Cooper Update

Cooper is getting so big! He is now 7 months and doing so many fun things! He is still the happiest baby out there. This month he started eating food. It only took about a week for him to figure out that if he opened his mouth he would get something yummy. He learned to sit up really well and now is rocking on all fours (I keep telling him to slow it down)

I changed his messy diaper this afternoon while he laid on the dining room floor. I went to throw away the diaper and came back and he was sitting up. So fun that he has figured out how to sit up from laying down and rolling around.

Jackson and Ellie are seriously the best big sis and brother ever. They entertain him, sing to him, hold him, kiss him, etc. They tell me all the time that they just LOVVEEE cooper. So sweet.

I am just eating up every minute with him. Chad and I just adore him. Enjoy a couple fun pics of him....

A Haughty Halloween

We had a fun Halloween. We decided to stick to the traditional door to door trick or treating. The girls across the street invited us to go with them and off we went. We were out for about 2.5 hours. My dogs were barking big time!

Jackson dressed up as a transformer. Ellie was Cinderella and Cooper was her little pumpkin. Ellie wore her high heel glass slippers the entire time. What a trooper. She is truly our little princess.

One funny story that came out of the evening was with Jackson. We were in the big homes of the neighborhood and as he is about to walk up to the home when he tells me he has to go to the bathroom. I tell him okay we will find a place for him. He walks up to the door to trick or treat and the next thing I know is the lady of the home yells over to me that my son has to go to the bathroom really bad. Yep, my son announced to a neighbor we don't know that he needed to use the restroom and could he use hers. Gotta love him. Jackson did indeed use her bathroom and I got to meet a neighbor I hadn't met yet. We were quickly on our way to finish out our evening. You have to love the honesty of a kid.

Jackson will be fine in prison

Woah it's been a while. Apolgies and thanks to everyone demanding a new blog post. You honor me with your venomous demands.

So here's what you've missed. Every soccer game of Jackson's we go to is a new adventure. A few weeks back Jackson did something to a kid I've only seen happen in prison movies when inmates attack each other in "the yard" This one kid kept pushing Jackson down so when he'd had enough action was taken. The final time he got pushed down he got up with this look on his face like a severe injustice had been taken. Kind of like when Ellie sits in his seat at dinner. That's HIS seat! Jackson chases the kid down and pulls him down by the back of the jersey, that's when I started running onto the field to stop a potential murder. After pulling this poor kid to the ground, he started kicking him and then walked right over him. By then I had gotten to him and could see all these confused parents on the sideline b/c none of them saw what he had done. Thank goodness. I wanted to scream something like, "There's bees everywhere! Save your children!" but just hauled him to the sidelines and discussed proper ways of handling people who push us - by carving a shiv out of your toothbrush, or anything that will sharpen into a knife.

More soccer!

This was a pick of us before we took the kids to their first Aggie game! They have a blast. Only b/c they don't understand the concept that the Aggies aren't very good right now. Seriously Coach Fran, what's the deal?

This is at their birthday party at Pump it Up! They were so excited. I was the only dad there so I was in charge of entertaining the kids on the bounce houses...self appointed. I was sweating like a pig by the end of it. I wonder if they host adult birthday parties there.

And I came home one night to find that Kiley had created a photography studio in our formal dining room. She had a dark blanket draped over the table and Cooper was posing for Halloween pictures. Adorable.

No More Soccer Games for Kiley

Jackson had a soccer game today. Kiley couldn't come b/c she had to go to a baby shower (booooooorrrring!) so it was just me and Jackson. They played another team of 4-5 year olds that just couldn't put an offensive scheme together and won 12-2. Jackson scored 3 goals and barely missed the 4th one. He had this one goal where someone threw the ball in and he kicked it up in the air over the heads of the other team, ran around them and then kicked the ball in the goal. Granted, I understand that he didn't really mean to do that but it's like my brother says when we're playing golf and he makes a lucky shot, "Lucky? I was aiming for the pin." Funny.

Jackson was so busy scoring goals that I finally went to their goal and pulled out my phone and snapped a pick. Luckily photography doesn't capture the sound of a sonic boom. You can't see the ball in the picture b/c it was ripping thru the back of the net. Notice how far in front of the other team he was. I'm so proud.



I know what you're thinking. Look at the quality of that picture, what kind of camera phone does Chad have anyway? Hey, it's like I always say, "It just cost a little bit more to go first class."

What's Your Kid Doing?

Well well well, it seems my kids have been busy putting your kids to shame. First off all, a short story:

Jackson started soccer. At practice when they would scrimmage he would fall on the ball and put it between his knees or dive on the ball and hold it with his hands so no one could get it. Cut to a red-faced father who wanted to strangle his son for stopping down soccer practice. So the day before his first game we went out back for a little one-on-one soccer practice. The first lesson only lasted 3 minutes and ended with me spanking him. After that we worked on three things that I had him repeat to me moments before his game. But before that I sort of hoped he'd get sick and not be able to make it to the game. No such luck. My prayer request to all my friends was that Jackson would not shame the Haught name on the soccer field that week. Finally Saturday arrived and we headed to the game.

So before he ran out onto the field I said, "Jackson, what are we NOT going to do?" "Fall down, touch the ball with my hands and cry." Hmm, this kid has promise. I wonder if David Beckham repeats that before each of his games.

The whistle blew and an amoeba of kids surrounded the ball and then the heavens opened and a miracle occurred. Jackson broke away from the pack and in a fast break (that happened in slow motion) took the ball all the way to the goal and missed it by about a foot. Nevermind the missed goal, I was 99% sure he was going to start crying and fall on the ball. I seriously teared up. More proof that miracles happen and therefore the existence of God. Take THAT atheists!



Meanwhile, we took the training wheels off of Ellie's bike and she rides like Lance Armstrong on steroids. Which he never took during his career. Take THAT France!



And Ellie finally took the plunge in the pool and went under water. Sounds like nothing unless you've done everything you can think of to get her to do it for 2 summers straight aside from dunking her. Another feat tackled thanks to great parenting.



And double check the last blog post and you'll see how much Cooper has improved this pose. These kids are AMAZING!



Want more pictures? I created an album here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=14792&l=d8d81&id=727129528

I'm in trouble

Hi blog. Did you miss me? I'm sorry I've neglected you. Here's an update. Miss you, chad.

A few weeks back we went to the lake. Cooper enjoyed it.


Jackson loves "tube-riden". He told me brother (Uncle Bubba) a new signal for speed. Thumbs up means faster but now two thumbs up means super fast! Jeff couldn't go fast enough for him and all he wanted to do all weekend was go tube-riden.


We brought Lucas with us and for the first time in this dogs life we wore him out. After the first day he was too tired to eat. He would just swim in the water and fetch his ball all day long until he was about to drop dead.

This is what I did most of the weekend. You probably didn't know this but I'm a lumberjack by trade. This hairy chest didn't come from sitting around playing video games all day, right guys? The second picture must have taken mere seconds before that long exploded into a thousand toothpicks...weird.

KA BOOM!

Lightning owes me a DVD player

Last Tuesday when it was raining I was sitting in the living room playing some video games when there was a huge flash of light and a sound like a shotgun went off. Our house had been hit by lightning and as the kids came to me for that feeling that everything would be okay, I uncurled from the fetal position and acted like it was no big deal. All the power had gone off for a second or two then came back on. Then my sub woofer started making a really low-pitched noise. I thought it had blown it so i turned off my receiver then i looked down and my ps3 just had a blinking red light on it. uh oh. so i turned that off. my internet was dead and my cable wouldn't come back on. so i went to make a call and all my phones were dead. frrt. i went and checked out our new washer and dryer to make sure they were working but those were fine. shew.

So i turn my receiver back on and all seems well. Sweet. then i turn my ps3 back on and it works fine, just won't sign in - no biggie, the internet's down...right guys? i call verizon and they sent out a tech b/c our wireless router and DVR were both blown as well as the box and battery backup they install in the garage.

i email woot.com b/c that's who i bought the phones from and they email me back saying i'll probably have to go thru uniden to get my phone fixed b/c they sold them all out and all they have left is the main base unit. i email them back and say since i live in carrollton where their main office is i could come swap it out and they were cool with that. my phones were fixed.

over the next few days i started finding other stuff that no longer worked. the dvd player up in the kids playroom, the outlets in our bathroom and then i went to play some online video gameage and found that the network port on my ps3 was fried. i called sony and we walked thru them verifying it was my ps3 (including me pretending to take it over to my neighbors house to hook it up over there [wink]) then they told me that i needed my receipt or proof of purchase (i verified it was a year warranty and explained that these things came out in november to no avail) - i'd have to go to sam's and get them to print out my receipt (fingers crossed).

i replace the powered outlet in our bathroom that has the reset button on it and that fixed all those. i'm so handy. then i went to sam's and they printed out the receipt of everything we bought on Dec 4th including my ps3 so now i'm just waiting for a box from sony with a return shipping label and everything but the kid's dvd player will be good as new (in 5-10 business days).

so basically, lightning owes me a dvd player. [i'm giving lightning the stink-eye right now]