Six Month Family Picture

Thanks, Heather (Heather Nelson Photography of Kansas City)! And, contrary to what you see here, Cooper smiles and laughs a lot.

Half a Year?

Six months ago today Chad and I had just met Cooper for the first time. We were physically and emotionally exhausted, much like the days we added four other little ones to our family.

Cooper's eyes were full of distrust as I cuddled him to my chest and sang the words I'd rehearsed in my mind thousands of times. "I'll take care of you. Don't be sad, don't be blue. I'll never break your heart in two. I'll take care of you. I'll kiss your tears away. I'll end your lonely days. All that I'm really trying to say is I'll take care of you."

During these six months, we have had the indescribable honor to do all those things for our dear, sweet boy. And, in turn, he has brought such joy to each member of our family. His siblings are so proud to call him brother and Chad and I to call him son. It seems we can hardly remember life without him. We love you, Cooper, and always will.

Last Days of School

Okay, this is not an end of the school year tradition. But, it's cute. One of Cooper's favorite words is "hat". Apparently, even a pull-up will do. (No, we're not potty training. We're just using up some old pull-ups from the last round.)

The last few weeks of school have been filled with all kinds of fun events. One such event was H's participation in "Night of the Notables". Each student became someone he/she determined a notable person. H became Shawn Johnson, Olympic gold medalist in gymnastics, from West Des Moines, Iowa. She (H) did a wonderful job with her speech and display board. We were so proud of her.

Another event was Track and Field Day. All three of our school-agers were participants, and all three gave each event everything they had. The following pictures are evidence.

A Fan

I am a fan of garage sales. I am not an "Every Saturday of the spring, summer, and fall garage saler", but I do enjoy getting gently used items at a fraction of the retail price. This last weekend was our town-wide garage sale. My sister-in-law and I tootled around town for a couple hours. She bought quite a few cute clothing items for her daughter, and I ended up with three things.

Number 1: A baseball t-shirt type onesie for Cooper. $ .50

Number 2: A high chair.... though we already had two high chairs in our house (one of which had been a shower gift for our eldest....11 years ago, and the other had been rescued from the curbside before being taken to the junk). This new model is easier to clean up, doesn't have a plastic pad that cracks and traps crumbs, and is just prettier. $10 (Thanks, Erin.)

(Old high chair with the pad from a chair as a backrest....many unseen crumbs in cracks)New-to-us wooden high chair with no hidden crumbs

Number 3: A refrigerator. Our garage frig. kicked the bucket over the winter, and finding spaces for frozen pizzas, pre-made casseroles, and cans of diet Pepsi was becoming increasingly difficult. $50

Thanks, Dave, for helping Chad get it home!

The Best of Friends (Most of the Time)

He is Risen

Celebrating our first Easter with Cooper

We had a wonderful weekend celebrating Easter with our families and our church family. Cooper didn't really seem to care about finding eggs, but he really enjoyed being outside.

We've talked a lot this week about what Easter means. One of the ways we did it was using Resurrection Eggs. They are eggs with tiny icons inside that represent an important part of the Easter story, ie. a crown of thorns, a cross, a cloth. My favorite one, however, was the last egg. It was empty....just like the tomb on Easter morning. Because Jesus rose, I can be confident that He defeated death and sin forever! I can have a relationship with my perfect Creator because Jesus took the punishment for my sins. He stands before God and says, "I've got her covered." How thankful I am for that!

Weekend with the Bradfields

My family, including two of my three sisters and their families, joined us for a weekend recently. The men were recruited to carry to the basement our newly purchased sheetrock. I can't remember how many trips they made, but they worked hard! So hard that they had to sit on the couch and watch basketball the rest of the day.

Uncle Brian can get a little crazy sometimes.

We had to keep the kids out of the way while the men were working, so we did what all good moms in this situation do; turned on a favorite movie. I think we've raised some pretty good tv watchers!

Cooper loved baby cousin Jenna. Though he is quite an adept walker, he crawled around next to her much of the weekend.

We are so thankful for the wonderful families with whom God has blessed us. They surround us with their support constantly. "We may not have it all together, but together we have it all."