Happy Birthday

I can't believe that at 3:40 pm a year ago today my world came crashing down when the doctors told us they had to take me in right now! I just remember freaking out because nobody knew we were at the hospital! I called my mom and started crying while Kris called everyone else. Then I was gone! Being wheeled back into the Infant ICU Delivery room so they could pass him through a window and straight into the waiting arms of some really great nurses. While they were prepping me for a c-section they had told Kris and I that the chances of him crying when he came out weren't great because he was so little. I just remember laying there focusing on breathing while Kris tried to keep me talking. Then there it was! It was the tiniest squeak you had ever heard and I just started to bawl. That to me should have said right out the gate how strong our mini Cooper was!

A year! It has never been so significant to me before. I know I have said it before but I just want everyone to know what a true blessing Cooper has been. He made me realize how strong I was, how fragile life is, and that miracles happen!

We love you so much little man! Happy 1st Birthday.

Mommy & Daddy

Family & 1st yr. Pics

If you didn't notice the new header...
We finally got a family picture! Yeah!!! It was kind of a stressful day for me but it all turned out great.
I was working for my mom so she and my dad could take a week off. Of course Mondays are the WORST. It really doesn't help either when someone forgets to forward the fax machine and then is out of cell service all day. STRESS ME OUT!!
Anyway when Kris got home from work we all changed and did some finishing touches and were out the door to Kiddie Kandids. They may be over priced but I love the fact that I dont have to wait weeks for my pictures.
So here they are:

Cooper Update

On Tuesday we had a follow up appt with the Utah Health Department. When Cooper was still in the Newborn ICU they had approached us and asked if we would be willing to sign up for it. Its all research oriented to see how well preemies adapt. They schedule you to come see them at 3 months, 9 months, 1 ½ yrs, 2 ½ yrs, and 4 ½ yrs. So needless to say we will be seeing them sporadically over the 4 yrs. Its really great though as a parent. They do more developmental testing than a regular pediatrician would. You meet with 4 - 5 different depts and everyone does there own thing. First we met with a pediatrician, then a neurologist, he had a hearing evaluation, a speech screening, and finally a nutritionist. Unfortunately this takes any where from 3-4 hours. Oh well its all good to know how he is doing. Everyone we met with thinks he is just amazing for being “ A 29 weeker!” That is what they call him being born at 29 weeks gestational age. His only down fall is since he starting to get really active he is burning a lot more calories. He is 27.5 inches long and only weighs 15 lbs 8 oz! I swear I am feeding him all his little belly can handle! So we have to beef up his diet by adding more formula than the usual 1 scoop to 2 oz ratio. We are supposed to be giving him 4oz w/ 3 scoops for added calories and adding a tsp of olive oil to his baby food throughout the day. For being so skinny though he isn’t that far away from walking. Maybe a couple more months is all. All in all he is an amazing baby. Kris and I are so blessed that he is doing so well for being so early and we will never take that for granted!

His 1st birthday is less than two weeks away! I just wanted to add this cute pic with a couple of teeth in it!

Hogel Zoo

Yesterday My sister-in-law and I took all the kids to the zoo. It was Cooper's first time and we picked the perfect day and time. It was cloudy the whole time so it wasn't even hot! First we went to see the Elephants. Cooper wasn't that interested in them even though they were moving around. As we walked through the zoo a pattern started to develop. If the animal wasn't moving he didn't care about it. He would look around at the other people and start baby babbling to them. Giving them big smiles and coo's. It was really cute! If an animal was close to the glass I would put him right up against it and he would put his hands on the glass and start talking to it. After seeing all the animals we decided to go the new carousel. Cooper sat on a bear and his cousin's sat on the row of animals right behind him. He didn't mind it but didn't love it either. I dont know why but he kept trying to lean back. At least the girls had fun! After that we headed up to have some lunch and on the short walk Cooper fell asleep in his stroller. Poor guy was tuckered out! We did get him a pet Lion from the gift shop and a cute sun hat for next time!

Weekend at BL

Yes that is right we did it again. Like our usual routine we are pretty much back to every other weekend at Bear Lake! This weekend was a little more fun than usual. We were able to coordinate with our friends The Gates annual Bear Lake (BL) trip. It was such a blast to see Corey come out of his quiet shell and look like he was having fun! Friday night we met them at the local BBQ restaurant. Afterwards we convinced them to come hang out at my parents house for a couple of hours. My dad gave them a tour of their place and then we started a fire and sat around talking and roasting marshmallows. Kayden, The Gates 5 year old son, was in love with roasting the marshmallows. He would stick them so close they would instantly catch on fire and then he would pull a little Dennis the menace trick while trying to blow them out. I almost died laughing I though for sure he was going to end up flinging a fiery marshmallows somewhere.

After some much needed sleep that night we woke up early and headed down to the beach to stake out our spot for the day. When all was said and done we had it all! Covered canopy, chairs, blankets, portable crib, sand toys, horse shoes, and volleyball. Now we just needed the people! After an hour of waiting Corey and Holly showed up and we helped the anchor off. Within the next hour my parents friends and their two kids and another friend with some of their friends showed up too. All in all it was a group of about 20 people. We did some boating and of course all the beach activities mentioned above. It turned out to be around 12 hours at the beach that day!

Sunday we got up early again but everyone was a little more tired. It took some convincing but I got Ashley, Kris, and Dad to go out on the boat again. I wanted to get out on the wake board! So we found the Gates out on the lake and headed over to the North side of the lake for calmer and warmer water! Oh boy it was! It has been 2 years since I have wake boarded but it felt great to get back out on the water. Kris didn't because he had sun burnt the tops of his feet really really bad and didn't want to squeeze them into wake board bindings. Understandable! After some skiing by dad we all stopped and started to float for a while swimming around and what not. When Corey dove in the water, not realizing how deep it wasn't! It was just shy of 5 feet deep. He had hit the bottom head first and jarred his neck! He already has a messed up back so this was a very very bad thing. We followed them back to the Marina where Kris escorted them to the local clinic where the Doc checked him out. Everything looked okie dokie but told him to take it easy for a while. Its never a good weekend at Bear Lake unless there is some drama!

4th O July Weekend

You have to love this time of year! All the holidays present perfect opportunites to get outside and enjoy the summer sun! Our 4th of July was great. We BBQ with my family and played a couple of games of Farkle before we headed over to Kris's Dad's house for his stepmothers birthday party. There is nothing like hanging out with family, having fun, and free food! It was a good for Cooper to see family he hasn't in a while. It was also a good day for firsts. He finally started to crawl on his hands and knees instead of "Army Crawling." Cooper also experienced a sand box for the 1st time. He and I sat there and I tried to get him to touch the sand, it took some serious convincing; I buried his feet, and he tried to eat the sandbox toys. I would have to say that was a good experience. He liked it better than grass. I also had the brilliant idea to see if he would like the water slide. Yeah not so much. I wasn't smart enough to touch the water first before I sat him down on it. It was freezing cold hose water and he instantly started to cry. So to win back his affection I fed him and then we left for the night to make sure he fell asleep before the neighbors started to light fireworks.Aside from all this fun we actually had a weekend that wasn't planned with "fun" activites all weekend. So Kris and I decided it was a great weekend to get started on Part 2 of our back yard remodel. Thursday Kris and our roommate Dave headed over to Lowes after work and picked up 2 1/2 pallets of tan retaining wall bricks. After a pretty penny and some extra tools of course we ready to get started! We both knew what we were getting into but didn't know how frustrating it could be. Of course I am a genius at leveling things and how dirt works perfectly for this! So I suggested that we the "soft" clay like dirt first and then we would use the 5 bags of sand. Lets just say after the 6 hours that it took just to lay the first row. We learned that they tell you to use sand as your base for a reason!! Our second row of bricks took a quarter of the time it took to lay the first row. From there it went really fast. We had all 5 rows done around 4p.m. and then a serious set back happend. Since we had an extra 50 bricks hanging around we decided to put another row on. I went inside to check on Cooper and shortly after Kris came inside. His face said it all! Something had happened. If you split our 60 Ft. wall into the 3rds the center 1/3 of the wall had decided not to stand anymore but rather lean against the dirt wall that was about a foot behind it. OH!!! We were almost done. Seriously mabye 10 more bricks and we were going to call it a night. But no!!! So Kris quit swearing and got back to work of pulling the collapsed wall and re-stacking a couple of rows and then filled in the gap with gravel before repeating until 6:30pm when he had finally finished. We had started at 9 a.m. so I would say we had a dang good work out!

Before "The Wall"

The Great Collapse of 2008

Success!!!

Bachelorette Party

So it is a very very rare occasion that I hang out with all girls! Mostly because I dont have just one group of girl-friends. I was lucky enough to be invited to Las Vegas for Amie's bachelorette party. I was so excited to go I couldn't even tell you.

We left SLC Saturday morning and after 3 stops for food, gas, and booze; we arrived just in time to check into our rooms. We had talked about what we wanted to do on Sat night the entire trip. I made it a point that we go see a male review. I have wanted to see the "Thunder from Down Under" since I was a teenager. Unfortunately for me it never worked out for either of my bachelorette parties to go to Vegas. This was my chance and Ashley (Amie's soon to be neice) had the same feelings. So we walked down the strip to a 1/2 ticket store. BUMMER! They didn't sale TDU tickets, but they did sale "American Storm." We were told that AS was better any way because the strippers came out into the audience! Horray we were so there. I haven't had so that much fun in a long time! IT wasn't just about seeing mostly naked men. It was the hilarious reactions of the women they would take on stage and strip for! Our Ashley was lucky enough to get taken up on stage by the second to last stripper Tony. He was the best one out of all of them. He did things to Ashley and another audience memeber that had the entire place laughing so hard. First he danced in between both of them, went around the back of the other girl and jumped over her landing in both of their laps. His head was in Ashley's and his butt was in the other girls. That is skill! Ashley was laughing and the other gal looked petrified. When he was done with that he stood up and started bumping his butt against Ashley. He was hitting her right in the boobs and hard enough that it was making her chair move. We were just dying of laughter!

Sunday we spent the majority of the day at the pool catching some sun and enjoying the hot weather. We had decided to go see Fantasy at the Luxor. After getting ready and grabbing dinner at the Cathouse (great atmosphere) we grabbed our seats for the show. Some how an entire Bachelor party ended up right behind us. They were funny but also irritating because they talked the whole time! Wow if you are into topless beautiful women you need to go see this show. It was great and now I know what my weightloss acheivement is! The rest is boring. We woke up Monday and drove home!