Christmas at the Cooper Home

Chistmas at the Cooper's 2006...

Karis on Christmas morning
Craig reading the story of Jesus' birth from Luke 2 before celebrating His birth with giving each other presents

Joshua and Philip playing together after Christmas dinner. They actually threw a ball together for the first time tonight... or should I say at each other?

Jenny made a birthday cake for the girls to sing Happy Birthday to Jesus. This was a big hit with the girls and they both got in trouble for sticking their fingers into the cake before dessert! I wish we had a picture of the cake with little girl finger swipes taken out of it!

Joshua in his big boy hat that our friend Breanne gave him.

We had a wonderful holiday and so treasured the time that we had together as a family. This Christmas we were blessed to make sweet memories with the children that we will always cherish. We are very thankful for these times and marvel at the grace of God poured out on us that we would be so blessed with times like today.

Thank you all for praying for Larry (Craig's dad). We received word tonight that he had hopefully his last surgery tonight and the doctor closed his stomach tonight. We are all praying for a full recovery and a sweet homecoming in the future.

Merry Christmas from the Coopers

Care Group Christmas Party

Last night we had our annual CG Christmas Party. What a fun group of people! We enjoyed spending time together and a cookie decorating contest. W e drew names out of a hat and decorated a cookie to look like the name drawn. It was hillarious to see another person's cookie rendition of yourself! We are very blessed to have such a wonderful Care Group

Tradition

We enjoy traditions in the Cooper household. Enjoy is putting it mildly. We are thrilled to have traditions to share as a family in hopes that we are building lasting memories with our children.

One of our favorite traditions is picking our our Christmas Tree with the Sanders! I think this is the 4th year that we have done this together. Each year we pick out our trees and then enjoy a meal together to celebrate the coming Christmas holiday. This year was no different. Here are a few photos of the evening...

Karis and Griffin enjoyed shouting into the tree wrapping machine which they thought was a giant megaphone!

The Sanders Family

Our family

Is it too soon to arrange a marriage? Just kidding!

Kitchen Renovations

For all the out of town family, here are a few photos of the newly renovated kitchen. I love my new kitchen! We were able to knock down a wall between the kitchen and breakfast room, and make one large farm style kitchen.

Raking Leaves

This afternoon I took the children outside for some fresh air and to make a small dent in our overwhelming amount of leaves. The children love to be outside and they are enjoying the new game of playing in the leaves. Speaking of leaves - we have a plethora of leaves and a large group from our care group came over and helped us rake last saturday. We are so grateful for our care group and were so thankful for the help we received. What was so funny was that after everyone left, we had a downpour and there were just as many leaves on the ground after the rain as there were before everyone came to help!

October Photos

I don't know why I didn't post these photos last month, but here are a few photos from Halloween night with the Cooper family. We were planning on going to a local fall festival, but with the threat of rain, we changed our plans. We picked a "costume" out of our dress up box and visited a few of our neighbors. Karis had a blast and really enjoyed seeing her neighbors friends - not to mention the 12 or so pieces of candy she collected in her sand pail.

I love the photo of Joshua trying to bite his sister's wings!

Fall Snack/Picnic

Karis has been asking to go on a picnic and pretending to picnic for several days. So, on a recent warm day, we had a "picnic" in our backyard. Karis packed the picnic in her Dora lunchbox (bananas, graham crackers and raisins) and the children ate on their new childsize picnic table that I got for $2 at a garage sale.

Karis was thrilled and hasn't asked to picnic since. I guess she was satisfied.

I love that girl. She is a joy and delight!

Joshua's Buddy Andy

Here is a recent photo of Joshua and his buddy Andy.

Andy is 6 days younger than Joshua (born the same day as Philip) and the son of our good friends Dave and Krista Sagraves. They are expecting their second child in a little more than a month. So far, their second baby looks to be perfectly healthy - an answer to prayer. Andy is doing well, and we are all excited to see what the Lord has for him in the future. (Check out his story at www. sagraves.blogspot.com)
Last weekend, Dave and Krista spontaneously joined us for dinner and then helped us clean out our garage. We're very blessed to have such wonderful friends.

Breakfast Boy

Our little boy loves breakfast. He wakes up ready to eat and sits for a long period of time eating - or should I say storing up! He doesn't eat much the rest of the day, but he packs it away at the break of day. On the morning of these photos, Joshua ate a banana, a cereal bar, yogurt, and cheerios. What is funny is that I turned around to make breakfast for Karis and heard him laughing loudly. Joshua usually chuckles, but rarely laughs loudly. I turned to him to see what he was laughing at only to discover he was dropping handfuls of cheerios (with milk of course) onto Charlie's back as he (the fat beagle) was gobbling them up as fast as they were being dumped.

Fall Activity

Last weekend, Karis and I invited Rylee Ridner and Madie over for a girl's fall activity. We made gingerbread cookies and applesauce. The girls loved mixing the cookie dough. It was a fun and chaotic morning with 6 children 3 yrs old and under!

Joshua and Philip enjoy fruit of the girl's fun!

Fun Family Night

Sorry about the layout of these photos... I couldn't figure why it was doing this.

We had a fun family night tonight. Craig suprised the family with a night out begining at Chick-Fil-A and ending at the Family Bowl. Karis loves bowling, which I think is quite humorous. She picks up her 7lb ball, carries it to the line, leans over and rolls it down the alley. The she jumps up and down and cheers on her ball - "Go ball go! Knock em down!" (Her cheerleader Dad must have taught her that one!!) Then, three minutes later when her ball reaches the pins, a few topple over only to hear more cheers from our excited one.

Joshua had fun too, but couldn't understand why he couldn't pick up the balls. They were too heavy for his little muscles, but he loved being chased as he would try to run to the alley.

I am so grateful for such a wonderful husband who plans fun family activities like these. Karis will remember times like tonight.

Library Puppet Show

We went to a puppet show at the Library this week with Auntie, Madie, and Philip and our good friends Rebecca, Rylee and her baby brother Jacob. Karis loved it and is still talking about it. When we put Karis to bed, we often ask her what her favorite part of the day was. Today, Karis still said, "Going to the Library" - and it was several days ago!
(Karis in pink pants and white shirt, Madie in Purple sweater and pants)


Jacob Ridner

Rylee Ridner - she sat still through the whole show completely engaged!

Joshua enjoyed wandering around the aisles of the library - we gotta get rid of that pacifier!

Philip

Long Awaited Post

I have not posted in several weeks. I figured it was time to put a few photos of the kids on the blog. Most of you who read this blog would know that Craig's Dad is in the hospital in Brazil. He has been there several weeks suffering from many problems as a result of gastric bypass surgery. The whole family would love your prayers on his behalf.

Craig's brother Stuart is over there serving the family by helping his Mom and Dad with the doctors and hospital side of the tradgedy. Craig and Tyson (his older brother) are here in the states seeking to keep the family business going. Please pray for them as well.

A few days ago, we tried the first cousin sleep over. With Stuart in Brazil and Craig (at the time in Atlanta) Jenny and I decided to stay together for a night. Humorously, I say we tried. In retrospect, I smile as I think of the night!

The children had fun playing together in the evening. The boys went to sleep with relative ease. Madie did as well. My little girl... well let's just say she was very excited to have her cousin in the other twin bed in her room! We kept hearing her try to wake Madie up - thankfully, unsuccessfully!

Finally she fell asleep an hour and a half after Madie. Jenny and I enjoyed the rest of the evening together. For a moment, I felt like I did 8 years ago, and we were once again roommates. Unwisely, we stayed up late - what else would you expect?!

At 5:30 am we heard little feet walking down the hall. We both assumed it was Madie - who had gone to bed much earlier than Karis. Jenny jumped up and called for Madie. What we heard suprised us. KARIS replied, "I'm not Madie. Madie is still asleep!"

More than an hour later everyone but Philip had been awake - thanks to my little one! I was able to get Joshua and Karis back to sleep, but Jenny's children were permanently awake (from about 6 am on) All of this and a trip to Dunkin Donuts - and they were all very happy in the morning to have even more time to play together.

Jenny's children both napped that afternoon... my little girl who oddly survives on less sleep than most did not!

Here is a photo of the children all taking a bath ...

This week, we had a nice long visit from my sister and her little boy, Aaron. We filled the week with a lot of outdoor play as we experienced unseasonably warm days. We had a great time and were sad to see them leave. The cousins got along reasonably well - for three children 3yrs and younger!

Karis and Aaron were funny in their interactions. Aaron knew how to press Karis' buttons and make our little drama queen put on a show!

Here are a few photos of Karis and Aaron at the park, and one of Karis playing dress-up - a new favorite activity. This morning, Craig let me sleep a little later than normal He gave the children breakfast and played with them and when I came down, they were all in the playroom. Karis was sitting on top of Craig's back in her chinese outfit saying, "yee-ha, yippie I O - Texas here I come!"

A Few Cute Kiddo Photos

Just a few photos of the children!